


Strawberry Cookies

by alekszova



Series: Sumo's [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gavin IS NOT abusive, I'm Bad At Summaries, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, bad siblings, but it's still 2038 because my brain immediately checks the 2038 calendar for dates, connor just talks about his ex a lot, good sibling too, this was supposed to be fluff but i'm an angsty gal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-04
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-07-06 23:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 62,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15896124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Gav800 Week Day 2: AUAfter retiring from the DPD, Hank opens up a cafe called Sumo's that Connor works at. Gavin isn't allowed inside.





	1. April

**Author's Note:**

> “There’s such a thing as too much sweetness, Quincy. All the best bakers know this. There needs to be a counterpoint. Something dark. Or bitter. Or sour. Unsweetened chocolate. Cardamom and cinnamon. Lemon and lime. They cut through all the sugar, taming it just enough so that when you do taste the sweetness, you appreciate it all the more.”  
> Final Girls - Riley Sager

_April 3 rd_

There is something extraordinarily calming about baking in the middle of a storm. The soft patter of rain intertwining with the gentle sound of a song playing over the speakers. It’s all drowned out when the mixer turns on, leaving the room to nothing but the whir of machine in his hands. When he flicks it off again, sets it on its side, he is welcomed back into the arms of the thunder.

He pulls on a pair of the gloves, taking a scoop of the sickly pink dough from the glass bowl and carefully shaping them into little spheres, placing them more than the two inches apart that the recipe said. He’s done that once. They all melted together. Hank was furious.

Until, of course, he realized it meant they could keep the rejects for themselves.

Ever since then, Connor has been an expert at judging the spaces in-between. Each time he gets a little closer to identifying the perfect width. It’s getting dangerously close to the two-inch mark, making him rethink exactly how much he thought an inch was a few months ago.

He slides the tray into the oven, sets the timer for nine minutes and hops up onto a stool to finish the rest. These ones sell out best, but it’s getting too far from Valentine’s Day to keep selling them. He’s going to have to locate the other cookie recipes soon, somewhere in the stack of papers in Hank’s office. Fill the displays with blues and greens instead of pinks and reds.

The stove beeps and he glances up, pulling the gloves off and tossing them into the trash before replacing them with oven mitts. Blue and white polka dots for his birthday last year. Connor could do without the polka dots, but they’ve grown on him. He see’s something at the store in the same pattern and he almost always reaches out for it.

One tray out. Another one in. He sighs, leaning back against the counter. He misses the chatter of people in the room beside him. Above him, he can hear the creak of floorboards. Hank moving from one room to the next.

Making dinner?

It’s getting late. He hadn’t realized that. The sky had darkened with the rain, had sent him into a spiral of not paying attention to the time. He’s filled this kitchen with trays and trays of baked goods. A chocolate cake, a carrot cake, two trays of brownies, one with walnuts and one without. Peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Little plastic bags of puppy chow, custom made so they have Sumo’s face printed on them, _Sumo’s_ written in bright white underneath the dog’s face.

If he had been paying attention, if he had worried more about the time slipping away from him, he probably wouldn’t have over made for tomorrow.

But his thoughts wander.

Back to _him._

His stupid face. His stupid words. His stupid lies.

Connor shoves the thought from his brain, turns back to the task at hand. If he focuses on cleaning up the mixer for the tenth time today, if he makes sure that the cookies don’t burn, if he double checks the ties on the bags and the seal of the lids on the containers, he won’t cry.

_He will not cry._

He hears the sound of the oven beep again, the sound of a knock on the door. He hesitates for a second before changing out the trays once more, glancing to the one still left on the counter and mentally curses himself. The bottoms could be burned because he wasn’t paying enough attention to put them on the cooling racks.

Connor pushes open the kitchen door, steps out into the dark of the café.

“We’re closed,” he says, coming up to the door, pointing towards the sign.

“It says you’re open.”

Connor glances down.

_Oh._

He forgot to flip it.

“The lights are off, the door is lock,” he says. “We’re closed.”

“The sign says you’re open,” the man on the other side repeats. “Come on. It’s just one cup of coffee. I’m getting fucking soaked out here, can’t you help me?”

“There’s a Starbucks down the street and a McDonald’s right after that. We aren’t the only place that sells coffee.”

“Yeah?” the guy asks, tapping the door again. “But you sell the best.”

Which is all on Hank and Chloe. Connor doesn’t even know how the machine works.

“I’ll pay double. Tip you triple what I usually do.”

_Double? Triple?_

“It doesn’t work that way—”

“Come _on,_ help a guy out. At least let me in out of the rain.”

“I do that,” Connor replies. “And you’re going to find your way to getting a cup of coffee. And we’re closed.”

“That’s not—”

Connor reaches forward, flips the sign over with a vengeance.

“That’s a bitch move.”

Connor glares at him through the glass.

“You’re a stranger,” he replies. “I’m not going to be left alone in a room with you.”

“What, you think I’d kill for a cup of coffee?”

No. Yes. Maybe.

“That’s not the point. You could be a killer.”

“Listen,” he says, leaning a little closer. It was too dark to make out his face before, but when he leans closer, the light from the kitchen behind him spills out just enough at just the right angle he can make out the subtle shapes of his face. “I’m friends with Hank. I know him. He’d let me in.”

“You know him?’

“We used to work together.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” he says. “At the DPD. Go ask him.”

“He’s not here.”

“Fucking liar,” he says, but he doesn’t say it viciously. “I saw his light on upstairs.”

“Sumo’s watching television. Hank leaves it on for him.”

“Does Sumo also transform into the old fuck that I saw walking past the window?”

Connor considers this.

“I can’t say he doesn’t.”

“Right. I’m gonna come back tomorrow morning and tell Hank you didn’t let me in,” he says, like it’s a threat. Like it will make him open the door and beg for forgiveness.

“I look forward to it,” he says, suppresses a small smile. This is so stupid. It’s just a cup of coffee.

But the guy is still a stranger. Just because he knows Hank worked at the DPD a few years ago doesn’t mean he actually knows the guy. The café has become well known enough that he’s done a few interviews about it. He could have easily mentioned it there.

All this knowledge proves is that this guy could be a creep obsessed with this place.

“Are you sure?” the guy hesitates.

“I’m sure.”

“Positive?”

“Definitely positive.”

“Fuck,” he says and steps away from the door, out from under the eaves and into the rain. The street lamps do a better job of illuminating his face. Connor almost recognizes him now. At least the scar on his nose, he does. The face is less familiar.

He watches for far longer than he should at the man disappearing down the street.

When he hears the beep of the stove, he turns around, nearly trips over himself to get back to it in time.

 

 

_April 4 th_

“Someone came by last night,” Connor says, stretching out while trying to suppress a yawn. It’s too early for this. It’s always too early for this. He likes waking up just before the sun rises—there’s so much time in the day—but his bed was overly comfortable this morning. There was a nice chill in the air and his blankets were a warm nest he didn’t want to leave.

“Yeah? Who?” Hank asks, setting a plastic container of pink cookies down on the counter in front of him. “Make those look nice, will you?”

“A heart?”

“What?”

“The shape.”

“It’s not Valentine’s Day. Do—just do whatever, alright?”

He smirks, slides on a pair of gloves again as he places each cookie carefully in a circle around the plastic tray. His brain is not up to making it look any prettier than a generic spiral.

“The visitor, Connor?” Hank presses. “You said someone came by?”

“Yeah,” he says, setting one cookie down carefully. The bottoms are slightly overcooked. No one will probably notice. _Probably_. “He said he knew you. That you worked at the DPD together.”

“The DPD?” Hank asks, sitting across from him. “What was his name?”

“I didn’t ask,” he says, then gestures towards his face. “He had a scar.”

“On his nose?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Hank laughs. “Good. Don’t let that fucker in here. Chloe—Chloe, do you hear me?”

She blinks, reaches out quickly for her coffee like taking a sip of it now will take back her two second nap.

“Don’t let Scarface in.”

“Of course,” she says, setting the mug down and glancing over to Connor. “You done?”

Connor pushes the tray towards her. “That’s all that will fit.”

She hops off her stool, takes the tray carefully and exits the kitchen.

“Sleeping beauty,” Hank mumbles. “Both of you. Go to bed earlier. You know you have to be in here by five.”

“I did,” Connor says, biting back another yawn. “I went to bed at midnight.”

“Yeah?”

“Four hours is plenty of sleep.”

“What the fuck were you doing up so late?”

Absolutely nothing. He got sidetracked with a book. Its chapters were short, it was easy to convince himself one more wasn’t going to change how much sleep he was going to get. He didn’t realize how quickly _one_ could devolve into _ten._

“You get a new boyfriend I don’t know about?”

“No,” Connor says, tapping his fingers on the counter. “If I did, you’d be the first to know.”

“Oh, so your last one wasn’t a dirty little secret for five months?”

Connor winces. He regrets that now. But at the time it had been easy to hide it, pretend it didn’t exist. It was exhilarating. It was fun. How close everyone got to finding out—how in the nights when he would exit his apartment and come back with only a few hours of sleep, he’d have to blame it on nightmares or television shows or movie marathons.

Not _him._

It wasn’t that he thought Hank would be scandalized to find out he had a boyfriend. It wasn’t that he thought Chloe would care about anything else. It was just the fun of it.

Strange, how, after he told them, that’s when there became something to hide.

Chloe comes back into the room like a zombie, picking up her coffee and disappearing again. The mug isn’t one of the ones for the café, which is at least something. She won’t get it confused with whatever early bird comes in the door two minutes after opening. Not like last time, when she had rushed across the room in such a hurry she had spilled the coffee all over the business man.

Poor guy. Should’ve gone to Starbucks if he wanted professionalism.

“Hey,” Hank says. “I’m serious.”

“About what?” he says, turning his attention from Chloe and her cat mug. “The boyfriend thing?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll tell you,” he says. “Every detail from the moment we lay eyes on each other, alright? You won’t go more than a day without an update on my love life.”

“Good.”

 

 

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson!”

He holds back his laugh but can’t help but smile at the sight of him. He never liked the guy. They never got along. They probably still won’t. The bastard doesn’t stink of booze anymore, but he still wears the same annoyed expression as he always did.

Perhaps that’s just Gavin’s presence in his precious little café. _Sumo’s._ What kind of name is that?

“Fucking Detective Gavin Reed.”

“Not a detective anymore,” he says, letting the door swing closed behind him. It’s a strange time in the morning, all the early risers already gone but the rest not quite making their way through yet. Or, if they are, they aren’t coming here. The café is nearly entirely empty but a woman in the corner, looking closely at her mug like she’s going to find mold or someone else’s stains and use it to take the café down once and for all.

“And I’m not a Lieutenant. What’s your point?”

Gavin see’s the twitch of curiosity cross his face. Hank wants to know what job he has now and Gavin isn’t going to supply him with the information unless he’s asked for it, maybe even if he _did_ he still would keep his mouth shut. He likes to see people like Hank squirm with the desire of wanting to know but not giving a shit about the person involved.

He’s used to that.

“I came by last night—”

“I’m aware.”

“So?” he says, leaning against the edge of one of the booths. “Your little friend wouldn’t let me in. He yelled at me through the door.”

“We were closed,” Hank says. “It was storming, no one was coming around.”

“Yeah? Your sign—”

“He told me all about the sign,” he says. “You can’t trust a sign. Sides, you wouldn’t have wanted whatever the fuck Connor was going to make for you anyways. He’s a baker, not a barista.”

“I could’ve made it myself.”

“Then you could’ve done that at home.”

“My machine broke,” Gavin replies. “Can’t do that anymore.”

“And so you came here?”

Gavin shrugs, “Thought I’d come and see what all the fuss was about.”

“You’ve been here before,” the woman on the other side of the counter says, her voice small. “I’ve seen you in here at least five times.”

“Yeah?” he asks and stuffs his hands in pockets. “Maybe.”

“So why did you come, then?” Hank asks, turning towards him.

Gavin shrugs again. No reason. None at all.

A thousand reasons.

One in particular.

“I like your coffee.”

“That it?”

“Yeah.”

He turns his attention towards the doors opening, to the guy stepping out with a platter in his hands. He stops in his tracks as his eyes meet Gavin’s.

He’s a lot cuter in the light. Hair combed back perfectly, except for a tiny lock. Dark brown eyes. Flustered expression. In the dark, he had only made out the shape of an apron, the slant of a nose. He wishes more now than then that the lights were on. Maybe he would’ve been more charming if he’d known the guy was cute.

_Connor._ That’s how Hank had referred to him.

The name suits him. He can’t think of another.

“You should go,” Hank says. “I’ve got a strict policy against dogs in the café.”

“Except Sumo,” he says, straightening. “You let him in here.”

“On Sundays. For the kids.”

“Right,” he says, glancing towards the little stack of flyers with pictures of ice cream cones on them. One scoop for free for anyone under eighteen. “I’ll leave.”

“And don’t come back.”

Gavin holds up his hands, steps backwards towards the door, pushes it open enough that the bell above his head jingles, “Can’t make any promises.”

Hank looks towards the barista, “You can refuse service, Chloe.”

“I will,” she says, but her gaze is somewhere else. Like she’s in the clouds.

“Hey,” Gavin says, looking towards the guy—towards _Connor._ “Maybe when you close up tonight you can remember to turn the sign around this time.”

“I’m well aware.”

“You sure?”

“Get the fuck out, Gavin,” Hank says, stepping forward like he’s ready to push him out.

He shrugs and turns, biting his lip a little as he steps out into the cold streets. Chloe remembers his face. Connor certainly will now, too. Maybe, though, if Hank isn’t around, he can still sneak in.

 

 

His face is hot. He can feel it. Neither Hank nor Chloe comment on him blushing, if he’s _blushing._ That seems so ridiculous. Like he’s blushing because there was a cute guy that was flirting with him and it might lead to something. This is different. This is embarrassment. Just embarrassment.

Right?

“Chloe, can you help?” he asks, his voice a second from breaking. He can feel Hank’s eyes on him, can almost feel the beginning of the _don’t even think about it._

He’s not. Gavin is a prick. He learned that last night, relearned it again in the last few minutes.

Chloe turns to him, nods quickly and reaches down to push the trays off to the side to cram in the last display of brownies. It’s most of what he baked last night. No one really buys sweets in the morning—but if they put them out with their little cards showing their price tags, it might make someone question whether breakfast shouldn’t be the pancakes or muffins on the menu and instead go for a slice of raspberry cheesecake.

“Why’d you bake so much?” Chloe asks, standing back up. “You alright?”

She’s so strange.

One second, she’s off in space or dozing off.

The next her eyes are full of sadness, her hand reaching out tentatively to his arm.

Maybe because she knows better than anyone else what he’s been through. He stayed up plenty of nights crying on Hank’s shoulder, but he spent more talking to her over the phone, relaying whether or not he should feel guilty for missing the good parts when the bad outweighed them so heavily.

_Of course you can miss them,_ she had said, and it was like he was suddenly allowed all of the joy and happiness he’d had before.

“I’m fine,” he says quietly, lowers his voice because he really doesn’t want Hank to hear this. The concern in her voice, the look on her face. “Just distracted.”

She offers a small smile, but her hand stays on his shoulder, gives him a gentle squeeze.

“Do you—”

“I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, turning away from her. “I have to—go. Frost. A cake. Or something.”

He stumbles over his words as he steps away back towards the door, shoving it open.

She’s too kind sometimes.

And sometimes he just needs to dwell in his misery.

 

 

_April 15 th_

“You open for real this time?”

Connor looks up from his phone, stares at Gavin in the doorway. It’s been a week since he’s seen the guy. A good, solid seven days of not seeing his face. After his last discussion with Hank—Connor thought that it would stretch out into forever.

“For ten minutes.”

“Plenty of time for you to make a cup coffee,” he says, stepping over to the counter. “Right?”

“The machine is shut off,” he replies. “And Chloe isn’t here.”

“The fuck do you need Chloe for?” Gavin asks, leaning against countertop. “Can’t you do it?”

“No,” he says. “Hank warned you, didn’t he?”

“Hank’s not here.”

“His warning still applies.”

“For what?” Gavin presses. “The coffee or my being here? You can’t be that bad at making it—”

“I am,” he says, setting his phone down. Full attention to Gavin. A mistake, really. “You’ll have to leave.”

“You can’t even let me make it?”

“Ruins the point of you coming here, doesn’t it?” he asks. “You could just—”

“I told you I would pay double,” Gavin says, tapping the counter with his fingers. The are scratches and scabs across his knuckles. “And tip triple.”

“I think you should go.”

“I think I should stay.”

He bites his bottom lip, moves to stand, “No one orders coffee this late. What purpose do you have? Going back to college and needing to pull an all nighter?”

“Something like that.”

Connor rolls his eyes, starts the machine back up again.

“You have to make it.”

Gavin smiles and slides behind the counter, brushing past him, “So, what do you even do here?”

“I bake.”

“You bake?”

Connor points towards the near empty display. He’s forced himself to wait the ten minutes to closing before he puts them away again. There’s always that one last person who comes in looking for a slice of cake to fix their craving.

“What, you bake all of those?” he asks, turning towards the case as the machine whirrs behind him. “I thought—I just thought Hank ordered them from like, a mass producer or something.”

“No,” Connor says. “He makes his own recipes. He hired me when he got too busy to do it on his own. I thought he told you—”

“I figured he lied. To cover it up. Like a conspiracy theory,” he says with a small smile. “Can I try one?”

“You have to buy it.”

“I’ll buy it, then.”

Connor steps over to the case, “What do you want?”

“Pick for me. What’s your best seller?”

He reaches out towards the tray, taking the last pink cookie from the surface and setting it in Gavin’s hand.

“What is it?”

“Strawberry.”

Gavin takes a tentative bite out of it, chewing slowly.

“Good?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “God, no.”

“Really? You think it’s awful?”

“It’s not—” he pauses, retrieving a napkin from the dispenser and wrapping the cookie inside of it. So much care for something he hates. “It’s terrible.”

“Why?” Connor asks. No one had ever told him they tasted terrible. They sell out the most. He is cooking them almost nonstop. In February, he has dough frozen in advance because there is never enough time to mix it together. People _love_ them.

“I hate strawberries.”

“You hate strawberries?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Gavin laughs. It’s—

It’s _surprising_ to hear. Something about his demeanor—cocky and arrogant and selfish—it’s like Connor never expected the guy to ever laugh. Especially not at something _he_ said. A smile breaks across his face and he has to turn and look away, hide it as though he’s more interested in the car slowly driving down the street.

“It wasn’t that funny,” he mumbles. “It’s not like—”

“Hey,” Gavin says, pressing his palm against Connor’s.

He feels his face flush as he looks down, realizes it is a few dollars and coins. Double the price of the coffee. Double the price of the cookie.

And an extra quarter.

“Your tripled tip is twenty-five cents?” he asks, looking up. “I feel sorry for Chloe.”

“It’s all I have.”

“Yeah?” Connor asks, leaning against the edge of the counter. “You should be more prepared next time if you’re going to force someone to make you coffee.”

“I made my own,” he says, pushing the lid down on the cup. “So, technically, I didn’t _force_ anyone.”

“Right,” Connor says, setting the money down on the counter. He’ll put it in the register after Gavin leaves. A careful counting of the coins over again. A quarter slipped into his pocket. His. _His._ “Is that all?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Gavin says, leaning towards him. “Unless you wanna give me your number.”

“I don’t have a phone.”

He doesn’t know why it’s the first thing he says.

Maybe because even if he doesn’t _know_ Gavin, but he knows the tone of his voice. He knows that it is joking. He knows he isn’t _really_ asking.

“What’s that, then?”

He looks up to see Gavin pointing towards his phone, sitting crooked on the edge of the counter.

“C-cardboard.”

“Okay,” Gavin smiles, like he’s holding back a laugh. “I guess I’ll just have to come here to talk to you.”

“You’re coming back?”

“Do you want me to?”

“That’s not what I said—”

“Tomorrow, then,” he says, with a wink. “It’s a date.”

“No—”

But Gavin is already leaving, not listening to his protests. The bell above the door rings again and he disappears out into the dark street.

A date. _A date._

 

 

Gavin thinks about Connor too much. In the time it takes him to leave, in the time it takes him to walk from _Sumo’s_ to the gym, in the time it takes for him to down his coffee and toss it in the first trashcan he sees.

He thinks of Connor as he wraps his hands in gauze, as he sheds his jacket, as he steps into the ring. He thinks of him when he throws the first punch and misses, when the second one lands against his jaw, when the third hits him in the stomach.

_A date._

It was quite possibly the most ridiculous thing he could have said.

But Connor is cute.

And it would be nice to consider the possibility of _dating_ someone. It’s been six years since he’s had someone he’s actually gone out with. His nights have been filled with blood and tears or one-time flings.

He’s never had a connection to someone before. Or, he has, but it hasn’t lasted beyond the first few months and the agonizing ones that follow. And maybe he doesn’t now. Maybe he’s imagining it. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t bother at all.

Connor is just a boy at a café.

He’s not—

He’s not _anything_ yet.

Still,

Gavin thinks of him.

He thinks of how he cannot see Connor with the bruise that is blossoming across his jaw.

 

 

_April 16 th_

Gavin doesn’t come the next day. Or the day after.

Connor keeps peering through the doors, looking towards Chloe. His secret helper. She has promised to text him, let him know if Gavin returns. She gave him a sly, knowing smile. He doesn’t correct her, doesn’t tell her _it’s nothing, just checking for Hank!_ because she deserves better than to be lied to. Each day her stare gets a little more annoyed. He watches as her level of liking Gavin decreases along with his.

And he doesn’t want to keep this a secret. If something happens—he will tell Hank. But only _if_ something happens.

And nothing does. Because Gavin doesn’t show up. Five days pass by before Connor admits defeat and throws himself back into the realm of baking.

A cherry pie. Peach cupcakes. Blueberry muffins. Strawberry cookies.

He stares down at the pink mix, chocolate chips decorating it like polka dots. They’ve been ruined now. He follows the recipe to a T but he still remembers Gavin eating one. It isn’t so much that he said he didn’t like it.

It’s just that before, Connor’s only personal connection, his only memory he attached to the batter, was the time he put them too close together. It was happy before. Now it has turned sour. _A date._ Connor got stood up on a _date._

It was a joke, likely but—

He had hoped. He had allowed himself to hope.

 

 

_April 21 st_

H closes the shop up behind him. The lights off, sending the little café into pitch black. He turns the key in the lock, moves to put them in his pocket.

“Hey—”

He jumps, the keys slipping out of his hand, clattering against the cement.

“Christ,” he mutters, turning to the voice. “Gavin, is that you?”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning down to pick up the keys from the sidewalk. “Sorry.”

“Are you capable of coming by the café at normal hours?” Connor asks, taking the keys from his hand. “Or do you sleep in too late?”

Gavin shrugs, and it is the action of it that makes him see it. The faint bruise along his jaw. Half healed.

He reaches out without thinking, catching his chin in his hand, tilting his face toward the light, “What happened to you?”

“Got into a fight.”

“With who?”

“Like you’d know him,” Gavin says, a small smile. “You worried about me?”

“No,” he says, dropping his hands. “No, why would I be? I hardly know you. And you stood me up. So of course not.”

“Yeah, about that—” he pauses, reaching his hand up to his face, resting against the bruise like he’s trying to hide it. “I’m—I didn’t—I had work. I was busy. If I had your number, I would’ve called and explained.”

“You could have…” he trails off. He has no idea what he’s saying. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” Connor says, holding his hand out. “Give me your phone. I’ll program my number in it.”

“Really?”

“You’re clearly a train wreck,” Connor says, taking the phone from Gavin’s hand after he retrieves it from his pocket. “You don’t—you’re a jerk. And I shouldn’t. But I guess this is on me.”

“It’s… don’t think that,” Gavin replies, his voice quiet. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

He sends an emoji of a cookie to himself, presses the phone back into Gavin’s hand.

“There. You can… text me. Or call me. Or whatever.”

“Did you really—” Gavin is biting his lip to hold back a smile, but it does little. “Did you really miss me?”

“You stood me up.”

“I didn’t think you cared.”

“I don’t—”

“You do,” Gavin says, and he’s really smiling now. A coy smirk that makes him want to keep his eyes on the ground. Connor’s cheeks are hot and he’s grateful that the light above them is only angled towards Gavin’s face and not his own. “You can admit it. You wanted it to be a date.”

“I wanted—I didn’t—”

“Yeah?”

“Go put some ice on your bruise,” Connor says, turning away and shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’ll heal faster.”

 

 

**Gavin:** a cookie emoji? rlly?

**Connor:** I thought it was applicable. It matches me.

**Gavin:** a dog mightv been better

**Connor:** Next time I give out my number I’ll remember that.

**Gavin:** :/

 

Connor presses his phone against his chest, stares up at the ceiling. This is happening too quickly. This is all happening far too quickly. Gavin swept in with his annoying smile and now he’s staring at the ceiling in the dark trying not to picture Gavin’s face illuminated by the glow of the screen in his bedroom.

There’s a flutter in his chest that he hasn’t felt in years. A yearning he thought he lost. Something he thought he wouldn’t be allowed to have again. And here it is.

 

 

**Connor** : Are you planning on making it up to me?

**Gavin:** ofc.

**Connor:** How?

**Gavin:** :)

**Connor:** I need details.

**Gavin:** :)

**Connor:** :(

**Gavin:** :(

**Connor:** This is getting us nowhere.

**Gavin:** :)

**Connor:** I’m deleting your number.

**Gavin:** you can’t do that

**Gavin:** :(

**Gavin:** tmorrow ok? after work. you free?

**Connor:** No.

**Connor:** Saturday is best.

**Connor:** If you really want to take me out.

**Gavin:** cool cool cool.

**Gavin:** i'll b there

**Connor:** Promise?

**Gavin:** promise.

 

_Promise._ He promises. He hasn’t made a promise in years. He hasn’t kept a promise in even longer.

Gavin moves the ice off his jaw, sets his phone aside. Next Saturday. _Promise._

 

 

_April 24 th_

“It’s late,” Connor says, closing the door to _Sumo’s_ behind him. “Are you sure whatever you planned on doing is still open?”

“If not, we can be like in the movies and just wander the streets, right?”

“If you’re trying to convince me you aren’t a serial killer,” he says, keeping space between them as they walk. “I don’t think this is the way to do it.”

“Come on, Hank knows me. We’re friends,” Gavin says, hitting his shoulder against Connor’s. “You gotta trust your friend’s friends, don’t you?”

“You and Hank were never friends, you were coworkers. He kicked you out of _Sumo’s._ ”

“I guess you got me there.”

Connor stops in his tracks and looks to him, his hands going into his pockets to keep from reaching out towards his face again. He wants to brush away the bruise like it’s graphite smudged on skin. “What even is this, Gavin?”

“A date.”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“I hardly know you.”

“And _I_ hardly know _you_.”

Connor bites his lip, turns his attention towards the dark glass of a shop window to keep from smiling. Gavin makes him silly. He turns his insides into mush and plucks smiles from whatever abyss they decided to hide in.

He also annoys him in, what Connor is reluctant to admit, an _endearing_ way.

“Alright. Change of plans. Follow me.”

 

 

They push the door open to an old diner. Old fashioned with white and black patterned tiles, deep red leather seats in the booths, silver accenting everything. They take a seat at the first table they pass. A booth by the window, the brightness of the streetlamps illuminating parked cars, the darkness reflecting distorted versions of their faces back.

“Have you been here before?” Connor asks.

“My sister owns the place.”

“Really?”

“No,” Gavin says, shaking his head. “Her girlfriend does. Wife, actually. She doesn’t know I come here.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t really speak,” he says, shifting in his seat, playing with a left behind straw wrapper. “Look, you want us to get to know each other, right? Do you want me to spill my entire life story now?”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Connor says. “I just… I don’t know. The basics.”

“Alright. I have a sister and a brother. How about you?”

“Brother.”

“Do you like him?”

Connor shrugs, leans back in the chair, “We’re very different. He’s very busy. Do you like yours?”

“Fuck no.”

Their conversation pauses, a waiter comes by to take their orders. Coffee for Gavin. Strawberry pancakes and a strawberry shake for Connor. It is almost a saving grace from the awkwardness that has settled between them.

“You really like strawberries, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I must’ve really fuckin’ offended you when I said that cookie was awful.”

“No,” Connor says, with a small smile. “I can understand that people have different taste buds. There is no right or wrong when it comes to that.”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” Connor says, tugging at his sleeves over his hands. “I suppose you may be the exception.”


	2. May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You're extra beautiful when you talk about baking. You know you're good at it, and that knowledge lights you up.”  
> Heartless - Marissa Meyer

_May 1 st_

He turns the quarter over in his finger as he stands outside of Hank’s office, not quite knocking on the door, not quite allowing himself to walk away. He should tell Hank. Connor had promised that he would. If someone was romantically interested in him, or someone he was romantically interested in someone, the first news of it went straight to Hank.

He broke that promise when he told Chloe, first. He should at least tell him now. And it could be just a simple text message, late at night, something Hank might not see because he rarely checks his phone. He _could_ do that. He could cheat the system. It’s not like Hank meant it literally.

But Hank _knows_ Gavin. It seems like something he should say out loud. Not something to keep secret.

And he’s already put it off for a week. If he was being truthful to his promise, he would’ve told Hank the day after their date at the diner.

Or, before that, when Gavin first mentioned the word _date._

“Are you alright, Connor?”

He looks towards Chloe, sucking in a breath.

“Absolutely fine.”

“You have something you want to talk about?”

“N-no,” he says. “I just… thought…”

“Hank isn’t here today.”

He lets out his breath, “What?”

“He left an hour ago. Sumo needed to go to the vet. Make sure he’s up to date on all his shots. Nothing serious. Do you need him?”

“No,” Connor replies. “No—I was… There’s a pie in the oven. I’m sorry.”

He slips back into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. He likes working here. He likes always having the excuse that something might burn to save him from conversations.

And Chloe can see right through him. She might not pester him to talk about everything, but she’d realize what was happening if he stayed out there another minute.

Hank isn’t here. That’s a sign. He’s only been on one date with Gavin. It’s not—

It’s not _serious._ He doesn’t need to tell Hank right away. Next time is fine, right? Right?

 

Strawberry shake. Strawberry pancakes. Coffee. Waffles.

They rest on the table in front of him, Connor plucking the cherry from the top of his shake, popping it into his mouth and tugging at the stem until it breaks off.

And by God, Gavin thinks he’s going to die.

“We’re supposed to get to know each other,” Gavin says, clearing his throat, struggling to look somewhere else than Connor’s lips right now. “So how trivial of things do you want to know? Favorite color? Food?”

“I think we’re a little old to have favorite colors.”

“Fuck off. You most certainly have a favorite color.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s pink, isn’t it? Or red?” he says, gesturing to the slices of strawberry, the soft pink of the shake.

“Blue.”

“Right. Fucked that up.”

“And yours?”

“Green.”

“I can see that,” he says, a small smile. “Green suits you.”

“Should I wear it more often?”

Connor shrugs, setting the stem down carefully on the edge of his plate. He’s strangely quiet, which Gavin can’t tell if it’s normal or not.

“You alright?”

He sighs, grabbing the stem again, twisting it around in his hands, tying it into a little knot. _Restless boy._ “Why… why did you stand me up, Gavin?”

“What?”

“A few weeks ago. You said it was work, but you also said you quit the DPD.”

“I have a different job now.”

“What is it? Your job, I mean.”

He bites his lip, tries to come up with something fake to say. Something other than _I let people beat me up for money,_ which isn’t even exactly true. He throws matches sometimes for money under the table, but otherwise he tries his hardest not to get punched. It was a real tragedy that one of them aimed for his jaw last time. He’s usually so careful about blocking his face, too.

Connor sighs again, leaning back against the seat. He’s taken too long to answer. He knows that. He’s fucking this up.

“I got into a fight,” Gavin says quietly. “Alright? It was a stupid bar fight. I didn’t want our first date to be me with a fucking bruise and I didn’t want to tell you it was over something really fucking stupid, so I stood you up.”

“But I still saw it.”

“Yeah, because I felt bad. The guilt was killing me.”

“And you were hoping I wouldn’t notice a bruise in the middle of the night?”

“That too. You’re an observant fucker.”

Connor smiles, but it is only half there.

“Look, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. I should’ve said something. Left a note. Something. I’m sorry.”

“It’d be best,” Connor says slowly. “If you don’t lie to me again. And you know, it doesn’t—it doesn’t bother me. The bruise.”

He shifts in his seat, feels the sting of pain on his side spiking upwards. If Connor knew how many bruises were on his body right now, he would most certainly care. It would most certainly bother him.

He is thankful they have created the unspoken rule of staying on opposite sides of the table. No holding hands, no leaning against one another. He wants to kiss Connor, but he doesn’t want Connor to know how much it would hurt if they hugged before they left each other for the night.

 

 

_May 2 nd_

_Sumo’s_ is closed on Sundays, which means Connor doesn’t have to see Hank unless he goes to visit.

If he goes to visit, he will have to tell Hank about Gavin.

So he stays home by himself, mixes a batch of strawberry cookies, and curls up on the couch with his phone instead. Their messages have devolved into quite a number of emojis, mostly on Gavin’s part.

That, and bad pick-up lines.

He likes to read them, likes to imagine Gavin looking up the cheesiest pick-up lines he can manage and sending them over. _Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?_ He smiles, doesn’t even bother keeping it off his face. This boy has turned him mushy. He is like an undercooked brownie. Poke a toothpick in him and he will be nothing but uncooked chocolate.

Connor didn’t have this before. Not really. The conversations he had with his ex were always, _always_ based around his dates. When it was, where it was, how he was getting there. Nothing else. It wasn’t messages that made him smile. It was planning. It felt like being a secretary, making appointments for the dentist or the doctor.

At night, when he used to text _I love you_ just before falling asleep, he only ever got it back a fraction of the time.

It wasn’t like they weren’t sweet together—it was just always Connor doing the work.

He doesn’t want that now. He wants Gavin to know that he likes it, he wants Gavin to know he cares. An undeniable crush that has taken over his heart.

 

**Connor:** Aren’t you tired?

**Gavin:** no this is v fun.

**Gavin:** and i slept until 3

**Gavin:** so i’m good until at LEAST 5 am

**Connor:** I was just checking.

**Gavin:** precious that ur worried about my health tho

**Connor:** Well, you have been running through my mind all day.

 

Risky. It feels _risky._ How many of these has he received and yet sending his own stupid pick-up line feels like he’s going to burst from the anxiety, like Gavin is suddenly going to decide Connor isn’t worth his time because he’s reciprocating?

He sets his phone down on the coffee table, retreats to the kitchen. He needs to busy himself. He needs to think about something other than the fact Gavin might reply back with something about cancelling their date this weekend.

He double checks the seal on the cookies, dumps the water from the bowl that was soaking in the sink, replaces the chocolate chips back on their shelf with the flour and sugar. He’s in the middle of wiping the counter down for a third time when the bell chimes on his phone.

Connor pauses, tensing up for a single second.

And then he races across the room, picks it up and flops down on the couch, pressing his hand over his mouth as the second text rings in. And a third.

It’s all just hearts. Every possible combination of them.

He supposes that means their date is still on for Saturday night.

 

 

_May 3 rd_

Connor sees Hank first thing in the morning, as he always does. He sits opposite of him and Chloe at the counter, his journal out, reciting the sweets to be put on display. The blueberry cake that’s going to expire needs to be sold today or tossed. The bone shaped rice krispy treats need to be made in preparation for Sumo’s birthday. _No more strawberry cookies._

“You got that, Connor?”

“Absolutely,” he says. “Strawberry cookies are off the menu.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” he repeats.

“Okay. That settles everything for this week. Anything you guys need from me?”

_I’m dating Gavin._

“No.”

Chloe blinks awake suddenly, looking over to Connor with an expression that makes him uncomfortable, like she’s reading his thoughts.

“Good. I need a fucking nap.”

 

 

_May 6 th_

_Sumo’s_ is a fucking catastrophe. Little kids are crowded around the counter, parents hanging back looking tired with coffee in their hands. It’s crowded and clustered full of people, far louder than it has been any other time he’s here.

“What the fuck is going on?” Gavin mumbles, leaning against the counter.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Chloe says instantly. “Hank is in today.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says, waving her off. “Where’s Connor?”

“Working.”

“Does the boy ever get a day off?”

“Sundays.”

“I know, I mean otherwise. He the only one capable of making a damn cake?”

“No, but he’s the one that Hank hired,” she sighs. “Please, get off my counter.”

He steps away, putting his hands behind his back, “Alright. Can I get my coffee at least?”

For someone so ready to kick him out of the place, she sure doesn’t work very quickly in getting it for him. He cranes his neck, peering past the group of people. Sumo is in the center, looking very happy to be receiving so much attention. He has someone sitting beside him, hand looped around a leash attached to his collar.

Connor.

“He’s working,” Chloe repeats. “You shouldn’t bother him.”

“How about tomorrow when Hank isn’t around and there isn’t a fucking dog violating the health code?”

“He’ll still be working. And Hank will be here.”

“I thought you were on my team, Chloe,” he says, pushing the money across the counter. “What the fuck happened?”

She tilts her head, her face shifting to something else entirely, something he hasn’t seen before. It isn’t the dreamy look she has when there’s no one talking to her, it isn’t the half asleep face in the mornings, it isn’t the friendly smile she wears when dealing with customers.

She is genuinely annoyed, and she’s annoyed that he doesn’t know _why_ she suddenly hates him.

“I’m apologizing for whatever I did,” he says. “Okay?”

“It doesn’t work that way. It’s not real if you don’t know what you did wrong.”

“’Course not.”

“Leave, or I’m calling Hank over and he’ll force you.”

“Even though I’m dating Connor?”

“He doesn’t know that, and if anything it’s more of a reason to kick you out.”

_He doesn’t know._

Gavin glances back to Connor, who is so entranced by the kids and the dog that he hasn’t even looked to see that Gavin’s here.

Why hasn’t he told Hank?

It’s not—

It’s not like they’ve kissed or anything, but he thought it was pretty clear from how they interacted that they were dating. Enough that Gavin can say he’s with someone. Maybe not enough to feel comfortable calling Connor his boyfriend but—

They aren’t _nothing,_ are they? They’re something other than friends.

Aren’t they?

 

 

_May 8 th_

Gavin has syrup smeared across his cheek and all Connor wants to do is swipe it away, but instead he remains absolutely silent about its existence. Payback for the last two times he’s left the diner and realized he’s had whipped cream on the tip of his nose.

“I went to _Sumo’s_ a few days ago,” Gavin says. “What was all the commotion about?”

“Sumo’s birthday,” Connor replies. “You were there?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you come say hi?”

“Chloe kicked me out,” he says. “Listen, Hank was still at the DPD when he adopted Sumo. It wasn’t in May.”

“No,” he replies, a small smile. “Hank has a fake birthday for the café. He likes to keep it separate from Sumo’s real birthday.”

“And he has a celebration for it?”

“He’s a big softie.”

Gavin smiles, “I guess. He’s like a dad.”

“Oh?” Connor asks. “What as your dad like?”

Gavin shifts in his seat, turns his eyes towards the table.

“What was _yours_ like?”

“Absent,” Connor replies, the word coming out slowly. “Physically there, but for the most part it was just me and my brother.”

“So, you two were close?”

“As close as we possibly could be,” he says, with a sad smile. “We were inseparable.”

“And now?”

“He’s in an orchestra. I see him at Christmas and that’s it.”

“You miss him?”

He thinks of his brother, of the similarities in their faces, of the way they wandered the halls of elementary together, unable to be broken apart. Even in high school, when their schedules were different, they were constantly at each other’s sides. When they went off to separate colleges, they called each other every night.

Niles is the only one that doesn’t know a single detail of what happened with Connor and his ex. He doesn’t want him to know, either. Even now, as far apart as they are, he knows he could pick up the phone and his brother would answer. They would talk for hours. He would hear the chatter of Markus in the background, saying that they need to sleep so they can get up early to practice. He would say good night, he would lay down, he would cry because they aren’t the same anymore.

So, in the end, it is always better not to call him.

“Quite a lot,” Connor replies.

“How?” Gavin asks, and it comes out breathless and quiet. Connor barely hears it, barely catches the word at first, only makes sense of it when Gavin continues. “How do you—how do you and your brother, with parents like that, how do you have such a good relationship?”

“Maybe it’s part of being a twin.”

He expects Gavin’s face to light up, for a joke to play out. _So, there’s two of you out there?_

But instead Gavin’s mouth twists, his eyes shift, “Maybe so.”

“You said you had a brother,” Connor says, trying to get the subject away from him. “You’re not close?”

“No,” he says. “Not at all.”

“Do you wish you were?”

Gavin’s eyes flicker up to his, soften slightly, “I don’t know.”

 

 

_May 11 th_

The phone rings. It goes on and on and on. For a while, he thinks no one is going to answer. Just as he’s about to pull the phone away, to end the call, he hears it click.

“Hello.”

Not a question, not like normal people. Just a statement.

“Hi.”

“What do you want?”

Gavin bites his lower lip, “I just wanted to talk.”

“To talk?”

“Elijah—”

“Do you need money?”

“No,” Gavin says, even though he does, he _desperately_ does. “I just—I just wanted to see how things were going. With you.”

“Fine. Perfect. Absolutely—”

“You don’t have to be a sarcastic bitch about it,” Gavin says. “I’m just trying to be a—”

“What, a good brother?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we both know there’s no point in trying.”

“Fuck, Elijah, what the fuck?” he says, kicking the edge of his dresser. “I can’t even call you and say hi?”

“I’m busy. I don’t have time for this.”

“Yeah, I’m sure being a rich bastard living who the fuck knows where with no visitors makes your day very busy.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Elijah—”

“What, Gavin? What do you want? For real?”

He doesn’t know. _He doesn’t know._

Connor got into his head. His stupid good relationship with his stupid brother. Gavin can’t even call his own brother, can’t say more than one word without getting yelled at. This isn’t how it should be. They should be like in the movies, ready to kill for one another. They shouldn’t be like _this_.

“I thought maybe…” he trails off, realizes he can’t put it into words. “I thought it’d be nice. To pretend for once.”

“That we like each other?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Elijah sighs. “I’ll give you two minutes. Tell me about your day. Got a new boyfriend?”

“No,” he says. “Yeah.”

“Tell me about him, then. One minute, fifty seconds. Go on.”

How can he condense Connor down into one minute and fifty seconds—

He can’t. It’s impossible.

But he tries his hardest.

 

 

_May 15 th_

“Why did you quit?” Connor asks this time.

They have already been through the basics of conversation with each other, their favorite colors, their favorite foods, their favorite movies or television shows. All of the things they would list on dating profiles. None of them match.

Connor likes blue, Gavin likes green. Connor likes sweets and Gavin likes savory. Connor opts for romance and drama. Gavin likes horror and action. He prefers it this way. He likes their differences.

But he doesn’t like this. The edging towards more serious questions. Spilling the reasons why he doesn’t like his brother, why he doesn’t talk to his sister, why he quit being a detective, why every Friday night he has to get a little more careful about not getting punched in the face so Connor won’t see the new bruises and cuts on his body.

“There wasn’t a reason for me to stay,” he says, but it’s a lie. There hasn’t been a reason for him to stay working there for many years before that, he just never had a reason to leave until recently. “How’d you end up working at _Sumo’s_?”

“Hank gave me a job,” Connor says, cutting neat triangles into his stack of pancakes. “I was going through something difficult. He thought it would help, so he gave me a job.”

“And how did you meet him?”

“Cooking classes,” he says, setting his fork down carefully. “I was terrible at it and I didn’t want to make my future spouse suffer from bad cooking.”

“Only bad coffee.”

“Yes,” Connor says smiling. “Only bad coffee.”

“If we ever get married, are you going to go to a coffee class?”

“I’m sure Chloe will teach me her ways.”

“Oh?” Gavin says, genuinely surprised. “That’s an option on the table?”

“Statistically speaking,” Connor says, keeping his eyes on the imperfections of the table. “There’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place.”

“Our marriage is an unlikely event? I thought we were soulmates.”

“Stop,” Connor says, biting his lip hard but the smile breaks past it. “You said you don’t even know how you feel about marriage.”

“Well I’ve just decided,” Gavin replies, leaning forward across the table. “I think someday I’m going to marry you.”

“I hope you have fun with your mission.”

“I am.”

 

 

_May 17 th_

_I think someday I’m going to marry you._

That’s what makes him decide to tell Hank. The reality of the two of them. The nature of their relationship. It is not a friendship. It is not anything more than just meetings at a diner, but his stomach flutters when their meetings grow closer. He lies awake at night texting Gavin and hoping the tone of his voice comes across through the letters properly.

They haven’t known each other for long. He’s not stupid enough to think they’ll actually get married soon, that Gavin actually already wanted to call Connor his husband but—

It made him consider this, to consider _them._

Connor appears at Hank’s door, knocks on it slowly like he’s here to ask for something he shouldn’t. Like he’s confessing to a crime. He shouldn’t be doing anything with Gavin. Hank warned him of that. He said Gavin wasn’t even allowed inside of _Sumo’s._

And he hasn’t let that happen. Gavin waits for him outside while he turns the sign around. He waits while Connor double checks that the ovens are turned off, that the cakes are put in the fridge, that the counters are clean.

Only once has Gavin made his way inside of the café on his watch. A mistake. Hank doesn’t need to know about that. He keeps the quarter in his pocket still, feels the ridges of it when he can’t pay attention to anything else other than the memory of Gavin’s smile playing across his lips.

“Come in.”

He pushes the door open, closes it behind him. He’s aware that he’s smiling a little bit and he tries to push it off his face.

“You told me…” he trails off, tries to find the right words. “I wanted to let you know about…”

“About what?”

It seems so silly. It seems so trivial.

It seems too big to say the words out loud.

“It’s been more than a day. I said I’d update you on my love life every day,” he says, taking a seat in the chair opposite of him. “And I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“It was a joke. I didn’t expect—”

“Gavin.”

He blurts the name out like he can’t contain it anymore. It’s so different from last time, when he was caught on the streets, half hidden in an alley way. Saying his name out loud, making it real, being the one to tell Hank instead of Hank stumbling across them—

It’s strangely freeing.

“Gavin?”

“I’ve been meeting him on Saturdays,” Connor says. “We… we call them dates, but I don’t really know if they are. We talk. I like him.”

_“Gavin?”_

“Yes,” he says, biting back a smile. “Gavin.”

“You—” Hank stops himself and looks away. Connor knows what he was about to say. _You could do better._ Maybe he could, but it doesn’t matter. He likes Gavin.

And he has done so much worse.

“How many times have you met with him?”

“Four.”

“And you’re just… getting to know each other?”

“Yes.”

“You tell him about—”

“No,” Connor says, shrinking into himself. “No, and I don’t think I will.”

He can tell Hank has an opinion on this by the way he moves in his chair, the way he looks from Connor’s face to the computer screen, but he doesn’t say it. Connor is grateful for that. He doesn’t—

He doesn’t want someone to tell him what he is allowed to keep hidden and what he’s allowed to tell other people.

It’s not that he thinks Gavin will hate him for it. It’s not that he thinks it will change their relationship. He just doesn’t want him to know. Connor wants to pretend it never happen. Fold it up smaller and smaller until he can hide it in the back of his mind, shove it between the cracks of his brain. Gone forever, lost in that small space.

And maybe, actually, some small part of him _is_ terrified of how Gavin will look at him differently if he knows.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Whatever. Be with him if it makes you happy.”

 

 

_May 19 th_

“I’ve changed my fucking mind.”

“What?”

Hank sits down on the stool, resting his hands on the counter like he’s trying to keep himself from punching something, “I said I’ve changed my mind.”

“About what?”

“You and Gavin.”

Connor bites his lip, decides to turn his attention from the arrangement of muffins to Hank.

“I need you to clarify a bit more,” he says. “About why exactly.”

“I don’t want you two fucking dating, isn’t that clear enough?”

“ _Why_?” he repeats, stresses the word as much as he can.

“Because I know Gavin. Because he’s a piece of shit. Because he’s not good enough for you. There’s a fuck ton of reasons. You’re telling me you’ve been talking to him for a few weeks now and you don’t realize what an asshole he is?”

He doesn’t know how to reply to that. Gavin is a prick—yes, he saw that the night they met, how he talked to Hank when he was here that day. But otherwise? No. Gavin has been kind. He’s been sweet. He never said anything rude to the waitress, Chloe has never commented on Gavin being anything more than a superficial impoliteness _before_ they started to meet up—

“Have you considered he might be different than who he was when he worked at the DPD?”

“Gavin’s never going to change,” Hank says. “I saw him from day one and I saw him recently. He’s the exact fucking same.”

There is something so strange about seeing an old man swear in a pastel pink and blue kitchen. It’s almost amusing. There’s a wrongness to it, too, something he hasn’t gotten used to in his time working here.

“You don’t see him—”

“I don’t want you dating him. He’s a fuckwad.”

“You keep saying that but you aren’t telling me _why,_ Hank, what did he do?”

Hank sits back, his jaw working, his brain likely jumping from one story to the next. Is he thinking about the worst one he could tell? Is he trying to pick out something to show how absolutely constant Gavin was terrible?

“I could write a fucking novel on all the shit he did,” Hank says. “And I know—I know you haven’t told me everything. About you and what’s-his-face—”

“Eddie.”

“Fucking Eddie,” he sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. “Look, Gavin got in a lot of fights. Nearly every day. He’s violent. I don’t think that you should be with someone like that. Not after Eddie.”

He’s silent for a long time, unable to find the right words.

How does he explain that he doesn’t think Gavin is like that? How does he explain to Hank, who doesn’t even know how violent Eddie was, that it isn’t the same? How does he he explain to _himself_ that it’s not the same?

Eddie wasn’t the same as Gavin in the beginning, but they were both—

_Something._ They both made butterflies appear in his stomach. They both had an exterior that was slightly rough but charming. Eddie was controlling but he had a way of making it seem like a nice trait. A dominant hand that made Connor shrink into himself but always like it was his choice, like he _wanted_ it.

Gavin isn’t the same. He is endearing. He is ridiculous. He makes Connor _smile_ which is more than Eddie ever did.

“I’m sorry,” Hank says quietly. “I know you like him, but you should end it before it gets ugly.”

 

 

_May 21 st_

He’s in the middle of writing a text when Connor’s rings in. He hesitates for a moment, not quite reading what he’s been sent, still in the decision process of whether he should finish up this cheesy joke or delete it and save it for another day.

Gavin’s finger hits the backspace, he feels a small smile unfolding across his face. He loves reading Connor’s texts. He loves the perfect grammar. He loves the succinct nature of them. He likes how different they are—it makes them slide into place perfectly.

And then it falls.

 

**Connor:** Sorry. Need to cancel tomorrow night.

**Gavin:** ok. next week still on?

**Connor:** I have to cancel then, too.

**Gavin:** evrything alright?

**Gavin:** did something happen?

**Connor:** No. Just think it’s best we have some time apart.

 

_Time apart?_ They barely see each other. It’s not like Gavin goes to _Sumo’s_ every day looking for him, distracting him from work. He almost did twice, but he changed his mind because Chloe had a point. He was working. Gavin didn’t need to bother him. He hasn’t been back to _Sumo’s_ before it closed since.

He feels guilty for being mad. Not at Connor, it isn’t directed at Connor, it’s at how little they have actually been together. A couple of hours once a week isn’t enough for him to fall in love with Connor, no, but it’s not like it meant _nothing._ And now it’s gone. Forever?

God. He doesn’t know if it’s forever. It’s just two weeks.

But he knows what the phrasing _time apart_ means.

It means a lot more than two weeks.

 

 

Connor swipes the phone from the table as it rings, looks at Gavin’s name, at the default picture it gives him in the circle. Does he answer it? Does he hang up? Does he let it ring?

“Connor?”

He mutes it, sets it face down on the table as Chloe sinks down on the couch beside him.

“I’m fine,” he says quietly.

Her arm wraps around his shoulders, pulls him against her chest. He doesn’t need words with her. They know each other too well. Every dirty detail of their pasts is out in the open, spread on the table between them to dissect when something goes wrong.

So he doesn’t know why he lies to her still. _I’m fine._ He’s not.

Him and Gavin weren’t really anything at all. They weren’t boyfriends. They were something much different than just friends. A month and a half. That’s all they knew each other for.

But it feels like a break up. It feels like a loss.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this,” Chloe whispers. “But I’m here for you if you want to tell me, okay?”

“I know.”

 

 

_May 22 nd_

Gavin sets the ice against his lip, watching the purple bloom across his skin. It fucking kills. He’d gotten careless tonight. Let the punches swing too wild, aim at random.

What the fuck did he do that he didn’t realize make Connor not like him? Did he somehow give too much information to Elijah, did his brother ruin this for him? Was it because he mentioned he didn’t have a good relationship with him, with his parents?

_Fuck._

What the fuck did he do?

 

 

_May 29 th_

Gavin goes to the diner anyways. He makes sure to take a path to it that doesn’t go past _Sumo’s_ to get here. He spent an hour looking online to double check, that even if it was going to take twice as long, at least Connor wouldn’t think he was stalking him.

It just feels _wrong_ not to come here. It’s grown to become too much of his weekly routine to let it go. Last week, when he had decided not to go, he spent the entire night staring at the ceiling of his bedroom trying to convince himself that he didn’t need someone to punch him in the face to feel normal.

And he had failed.

So now he’s here, wincing at the way the coffee burns the cut in his lip. He accidentally orders the strawberry pancakes instead of waffles and he’s too exhausted to send them back so he cuts them up into tiny pieces until it’s nothing more than a shredded mess.

A lot like him, he thinks. Strawberries bleeding across it, infecting everything it touches.

The bell above the door jingles and he looks up immediately, half expecting Connor to walk through the door with a smile on his face, sliding into the booth across from him.

But it’s just a mom and her little kid, looking deliriously tired as they slump down into a booth on the other side.

Gavin sets the fork down, forces himself to stop destroying the food on his plate and retrieves the phone from his pocket. He types out the question, hesitates for a long moment, deletes the words, types it again.

_Did I do something?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure I haven't read Heartless but maybe I will now that I've stolen a quote from it.
> 
> Writing & Editing music;  
> Hello My Old Heart - The Oh Hellos  
> Landslide - Oh Wonder


	3. June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Baking is a science, as rigorous as chemistry or physics. There are rules that must be followed. Too much of one thing and not enough of another can lead to ruin. I find comfort in this. Outside, the world is an unruly place where men prowl with sharpened knives. In baking, there is only order.”  
> Final Girls - Riley Sager

_June 1 st_

_Did I do something?_

Connor doesn’t know how to answer, or if he _should_ at all, but it lingers in the back of his head from the moment he gets the message.

No, he didn’t _do_ anything.

But yes, he _had_. Before Connor even met him, he had done something. Hank was probably right. A violent person shouldn’t be around him but—

He misses him. Saturday nights come and go and they feel empty without the taste of strawberries and the smell of coffee, even if he gets that here, at the café, it’s different in the diner.

He misses sitting across from Gavin and smiling and laughing and feeling like he was able to talk about himself without taking up too much space in a conversation. He misses seeing Gavin’s face, hearing him laugh, watching the smile spread as he realizes he’s said something that caused Connor to react in a way he hadn’t expected.

He misses the text messages.

He keeps opening his phone, scrolling to the ones just before, staring at the words and the hearts before closing it out again.

Chloe would listen to him if he vented about this. She would even take his phone and delete Gavin from his contacts, all of the texts from his history, and he would be left a clean slate again. Digitally, at least.

He could call Niles, he could curl up on his bed with his blanket and bury his face in his pillow as he tried to tell him what happened but—

There’s always the possibility he won’t answer. There’s always that tiny fear sitting in the back of his head. He knows Niles would pick up, he knows Niles would make a point to call back within a few minutes of noticing that they missed each other—

But that one sliver of being missed, of being ignored, or not being able to talk when it is his decision—

It’s far too much. It weighs too heavily.

_Did I do something wrong?_

Maybe. Connor barely knows anymore.

He just knows _he’s_ done something wrong.

 

 

_June 2 nd_

He winces as he tugs the shirt up his side, half from the pain and half from the fact he doesn’t want to see what lies underneath the fabric, but he knows he has to.

The bruise is hideous and taking up far too much space. It is a grotesque mirror of the tattoo on his other side, spreading too far, causing too much pain. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to be holding his shirt like this, to be angling his torso so he can get a better look.

He should go to the hospital. He could’ve fractured a rib, but he doesn’t have the money. He barely covered rent this month, even with all the extra fighting he’s done since Connor stopped meeting up with him, it’s not enough.

And he’s bruised his ribs before, if that’s what this is. He knows how to take care of it.

Gavin drops the shirt, tugs it down lightly to make sure it covers every bit of skin. He almost looks normal if he keeps it that way. There are scars lining his arms, wrapped around like claw marks, but he’s done a good job at hiding them, too. He is an expert at keeping his wounds hidden, even though it’s getting to warm out to constantly be wearing his jacket.

He’ll survive.

He always does.

 

 

_June 3 rd_

**Connor:** I think we should talk.

**Connor:** In person.

**Connor:** Sumo’s is closing early tomorrow night. It will be empty after six.

**Connor:** Gavin?

**Connor:** Please.

**Gavin:** okay.

 

 

_June 4 th _

The place looks as strange as it did the first night he met Connor. He’s seen it empty, he’s seen it crowded, he’s seen it everything in between. But he’s never been inside while the lights where off, while the tables were clear. Connor texted him that the door would be unlocked, that he could let himself in. It feels strange to open, to hear the bell jingle into the darkness. It feels like a zombie movie. One wrong move and he will be killed.

“Connor?”

The door closes behind him. He takes a careful step across the floor, pausing in front of the door into the kitchen. He raises a hand, knocking on it lightly before pushing it open.

Connor turns, glancing at him only long enough to register his face before looking back at whatever lies in front of him on the counter.

“I—You—” he stops. He has no idea what he’s saying. He doesn’t know how to start this. He doesn’t know how to say _you wanted me here._ His words have lost him because, in all honesty, he thought he might never see Connor’s face again.

And now here it is. Looking away from him.

And he still wants to kiss him. _Fuck._ It takes all of his willpower not to step forward, to tilt Connor’s chin that fraction of an inch upwards so their lips would meet. The one time Connor is short enough that Gavin would have to lean down to kiss him instead of the other way around, and he can’t do it.

His hands twitch at his side. He stays by the door.

It’s safe over here. He won’t be making any mistakes. He won’t be distracting and destroying a conversation they need to have because he’s finally given in to this want that has tangled its way in his stomach.

“Hi,” he settles on, it comes out as a quiet whisper. He tries again, but it’s barely anything more.

When did Connor do this to him? It certainly wasn’t the first time they met. It was barely the second. He crept up on Gavin, found his way inside, made a home for himself.

“You can sit.”

It’s safe over here, though.

But he knows how it will look if he keeps his distance.

So, he nods, even though Connor isn’t looking at him, and takes a seat on the stool beside him, glancing at the book open in front of him. Stained pages. Some of the letters look blurred. It’s a book of recipes. Breads and rolls pictured on the opposite side.

Logically speaking, Gavin _knows_ that the word “bakery” includes all types of baked goods. He knows any other bakery in the city probably sells bread, but _Sumo’s?_ The closest they have to it is bread pudding or banana bread, and even that is a rarity.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Because he means it.

Chloe was right, though. It sounds meaningless and empty when he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. He’s distracted himself enough to bruise his own ribs and get his lip cut open because his thoughts were stuck replaying every interaction between him and Connor.

_What did he do?_

Did he do something at all?

Connor never answered him on that. He waited and waited for the answer and it hasn’t arrived yet.

“For what?”

_Everything._

He’s sorry he showed up at _Sumo’s_ that night and was a prick. He’s sorry that the next morning he was feeling bored and decided to see if he could get Connor in trouble. He’s sorry he stood Connor up because he was too worried what a bruise on his jaw might do to a relationship that consisted of exactly three disastrous meetings.

And _fuck—_

He’s sorry that he can get into a physical fight at the drop of a hat but the second Connor decided that they were through he let it happen without any struggle at all.

“Too much,” he settles on.

“I told Hank,” Connor says, his hands coming up from his lap, setting a quarter down in the middle of the pages. They’re shaking and Gavin wants to reach out and steady them. “He told me. About you. About… about the fights you used to get into.”

“Hank doesn’t know shit,” he says immediately, bites his tongue because he regrets it. He’s not mad at Connor. He shouldn’t snap at him.

But Hank?

Fucking hell. He should have seen that coming. He had avoided asking Connor about why he hadn’t told Hank about them before because he thought it might work in his favor. It was selfish—but it’s what he did.

And that’s who he is, isn’t it? _Selfish._

“Look, a lot of shit happened when I worked at the DPD. Hank knew about half of it and he always knew the half that I didn’t have a say in,” he says. “But—”

“You got into fights, Gavin,” he says, his eyes still glued to the book. Or the coin. “It doesn’t matter why.”

“I know.”

“I can’t—I can’t—”

“Listen,” Gavin says, forcing his fingers to curl up into his palms, to fold his arms over his chest. He is desperate to reach out to him, but he knows once he touches him, it’s game over. He has too little of self control. Not when it comes to something like this. “I regret it. I do. I’m not—I’m not going to pretend that it was a good idea. I’m not going to say violence is the answer, alright? But it’s not—I’m not like that anymore.”

“You stood me up on our first date because you got into a fight, Gavin.”

“I know,” he says, because what else can he say? “But it was different.”

“How?”

“B-before I was a jerk, alright? I started them or I knew they were going to happen so I jumped in or I made sure it happened. I was fuckwad. I was an idiot. I was a thousand things. I still am but—it’s not the same now. It’s different. It’s—”

“It’s _not,”_ Connor says, his voice breaking on the word. “It’s not different.”

“Connor,” he whispers. “Please look at me.”

He does.

For a moment.

A single second.

Tears in his eyes, lip caught between his teeth.

Then, back to the page.

_Gavin_ made him look like that. _He_ caused that pain. He thought he was good at directing it inwards or at people he thought deserved it. Connor _never_ deserved this.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. He doesn’t know how to convey that he means it in words. He can barely figure out how he could convey it in actions. “I didn’t—I didn’t think about it then. I didn’t think it would matter to you.”

“You’re trying to date me and you think it wouldn’t matter to me if you’re out there punching people?”

It doesn’t make sense. He knows it doesn’t.

“I didn’t think it would last this long,” he says, and the words come on their own. He doesn’t realize how true they are until he says them out loud.

“Why?”

“No one else did.”

Six years without a boyfriend. Six years of him being alone or having brief hookups. People always learn on the first date that Gavin Reed isn’t worth the trouble.

Connor stayed for four dates.

Four times as long as anyone else.

Too much to hope for.

Connor looks to him again. His eyebrows knitted together, his eyes meeting Gavin’s. He hates that he caused that look on his face. He hates that he caused Connor to cry.

“I’m not—” he pauses, but Gavin can guess what he was going to say.

_I’m not like everyone else._ Because he is. Because he left. Because he is officially in the same category as all the other boys.

“I like you,” Gavin says, trying to choose his words carefully. “I like you a lot. I want—God, Connor, I really fucking like you and I really want to be with you. But—”

“But what?”

“I fucked this up and I’m sorry,” he says, his voice falling quiet on its own accord. “And I know you deserve someone better and I’m not going to hold it against you. I’m not an idiot. I mean—I really fucking am, but what I mean is that I know this matters to you and I can’t change my past and I’m really sorry about that.”

“It’s not about changing your past, Gavin. It’s about actively being different now.”

“I’m trying.”

“Are you?” he reaches out, touches the space on Gavin’s chin where the bruise was.

It is too intimate, too close. He breathes in, shifts his body so the pain of his ribs is greater than the feeling of Connor’s hand on his skin. His finger trails upwards, stopping at the corner of his lip where the cut was.

Healed. Almost. Barely noticeable to him in the mirror, even when he looked for it.

But Connor is observant.

He can’t hide anything from him, can he?

“I am.”

Is it a lie? Is it half a lie, is it half a truth? He can’t tell. Gavin has lied so much he has stopped trying to apply percentages of fact to things anymore.

He fights other people. He still does it. He still gets himself hurt. He still has bruises on his body. He still has broken bones. He still causes damage to other people.

Is it that much different than before because he gets paid to do it by people who are trying to inflict the same harm upon him?

He fucking hates this. He hates the idea that he might be lying to Connor when he’s so sure it’s the truth. The because these are arranged fights, that because sometimes he throws them and sometimes he tries his hardest to win, that it’s different.

No. He knows it’s different, but that isn’t the point is it? He thinks it’s _better._ It’s _okay._ That’s where the distinguishing factor lies, that’s what comforts him at night after he’s knocked someone out or dislocated someone’s shoulder.

“I am,” he repeats, and he knows his voice is cracking on the words. He can see Connor start to retreat and he reaches up, catches his hand before Connor can pull away and he presses kisses to his fingers. It is the most he will give himself. “I am. I promise.”

“Gavin—”

“I’m going to go,” he says, letting Connor’s hand go. Slowly, feeling selfish for making Connor be the one to pull it back to his side instead of dropping it entirely. “I’ll be at the diner tomorrow night. If you happen to go by there. I’ll wait for you.”

He watches for a moment as Connor opens his mouth, closes it again. Words lost as Gavin stands, biting down hard on his tongue to keep from wincing or letting his face scrunch up into pain. He leaves without another word, pushing the door open into the dark of the café, the dimly lit streets.

 

 

_June 5 th_

He can’t focus. His thoughts are everywhere, jumping from one place to the next. It can never decide to settle on a task or a person. Gavin or the overbaked cookies. Eddie or the dishes that need to be done. Hank or the counter that needs to be cleaned off. Even Niles and Chloe have entered the mix, his head spinning from whether or not he should tell them about what’s happening.

Niles would understand. Of course he would. How many times throughout their lives have they whispered back and forth about the people they’re interested in?

But Chloe—

Chloe has settled on a dislike for Gavin. _Not hate,_ she reminds him. She doesn’t hate Gavin, but she will never forgive him for standing Connor up. No matter how good of an excuse he had.

(Even if he was in the hospital? _Even if he was in the hospital.)_

_Cookies._ He needs to bake cookies. He needs the feeling of completing a task. Following directions. Exact measurements of flour and cocoa powder. Perfect amount of mint extract and chocolate chips. Precisely spaced, sized, shaped circles on a tray.

His mind is occupied, focused on the music playing, on the sound of the mixer, on the quantities and dimensions.

Then he pulls the tray out of the oven, sets it down atop the stove while he trades in the next one.

He pauses.

This isn’t right. The cookies are supposed to be dark brown. Double chocolate. Not pink.

_No strawberry cookies._ That’s what Hank told him. He listened. He knows he listened. There is a bowl of mint icing sitting behind him, waiting to be spread across the top of double chocolate cookies.

“Shit.”

 

 

“No harm done,” Chloe says, breaking a cookie in half. It’s still warm, the chocolate chips on the inside getting dangerously close to dripping on her fingertips. “Hank doesn’t need to know.”

“I don’t think that’s true. He’ll find out eventually,” Connor says quietly. “They really taste okay? I mixed two recipes together.”

“They’re… interesting. I’ll take them to North,” she says, shaking her head. “They’ll be eaten within a few days. I’ll make her pay for them.”

“Actually pay? With real money?”

“What else?” she asks, tilting her head to the side.

“Yeah,” he smiles. “What else could your girlfriend pay you?”

She smiles, as innocently as she can manage when it comes to North, before it falls slightly, “Hey—”

“Everything is fine,” he says quickly. He doesn’t want to get into this right now. Not when Chloe is only going to talk about Gavin because she feels guilty about having a good relationship right now. “Just make sure to package these up before Hank sees them, alright? I don’t want to get in trouble. He’ll find out on his own, but if I can put it off, I will.”

“Right,” Chloe says, her voice quiet. “But you know—”

“What?”

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “But…”

She trails off, the words unsaid. _But why?_ Maybe not _why did you break up?_ But _why won’t you tell me?_ He tells her everything. He might build up walls and hold most of it back but he gives her tiny little details, sometimes the act of saying them breaking apart his hold on the rest.

This is different. She knows they broke up, if he can call it a break up when he’s convinced himself they were just strange friends (but a person can break up with a friend, can’t they?) but nothing else.

“It’s just that I know you didn’t want to,” she goes on. “And I know it was your decision. So—”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Some part of him, the tiny part that knows the difference between him and Gavin and him and Eddie doesn’t want to tell her the truth.

Hank told him that Gavin was violent. He got into fights. He still does. There was a cut on his lip, a bruise on his jaw. Connor thinks he might have been walking strangely, even. There are traces of it in him that haven’t been erased like he said.

But it wasn’t like Gavin pretended he was an entirely different person now. Changed, yes, but still the same Gavin that Hank worked with. He’s _trying._

It’s too much to say.

“I want what’s best for you,” Chloe says. “And I know how much you hold yourself back on what you want. I know how difficult it can be to feel… _lovable_ again. Other people have a way of getting in the way of what you want, Connor, and you think you can’t have it anymore because someone says one little thing. You’re allowed to want things without feeling guilty. I just want you to know that.”

 

 

Gavin taps his fingers on the surface of the table, playing out a rhythm like he’s a pianist even though he remembers approximately two things relating to the piano lessons he was forced to take as a child.

One: the absolute and utter hatred that filled his stomach when he climbed into the car.

Two: the feeling of his fingers being broken when he refused to continue them.

He pauses the movement, the slight ache coming back like a ghost to haunt him. He curls them up slowly into fists, unclenches them after a moment. There is never anything he can seem to do with his hands that don’t remind him of pain or shows itself as an act of violence.

Of course, he’d thought about it before. It wasn’t the conversation with Connor that brought it up. He doesn’t spend every Friday night in the ring dodging fists thinking he isn’t a violent person. But before, when he was with Connor, things were different. He subdued it. He made him not think about the scars on his body or the pain from the night before.

He just _was._ He was just _existing._

He fights. He likes fighting. He likes to direct all of his inner pain outwards. But it has a place it goes. He has wound it tight, he has centered it. He is in command of where it falls, _when_ it falls. He has never pushed it toward a lover, he has never left bruises on someone else’s body that wasn’t consensual.

It seems like too complex a thing to explain to Connor. That he wouldn’t hurt him. He would _never_ hurt him.

He spent the last six years figuring out his shit. He’s got this under control. He’s working towards being a better person. Connor has made the process easier, in the short time they’ve been together.

“Excuse me?”

Gavin looks up, bringing his hand from the table to brush across his face awkwardly, checking for tears, not quite sure if he’ll find any. He hadn’t heard the bell chime. He’d been to lost in his thoughts, too obsessed with whether or not he’s allowed to feel like this.

“Yeah?” he says, the word falling from him.

“Is this seat taken?”

“No,” he says, trying to decide if he’s allowed to smile or not. “No, of course not.”

 

 

Connor sits down, pulling in a slow breath. He feels like he is coiled, rigid, unable to move. Like an android. Too complex to be dealt with right now.

He doesn’t know what to say. If he should brush everything off, pretend nothing happened. Take a few steps back, smile, say something funny. They could forget anything happened and go back to how they were.

But that isn’t how things work. It isn’t even how they _should_ work.

But the only thing he wants to say right now is _stop fighting,_ and he can’t quite get himself to form those words. He has been told what to do by his ex so many times that the thought of asking something so big of someone is too much.

And, what good would it do anyways? It isn’t as if Gavin fights on a daily basis. It’s something he does when he gets drunk, when he’s impulsive.

_Stop drinking_ is about as useful as a thing to say as _stop fighting._

They are undeniably things that Connor knows would be normal, would be healthy to say, but how quickly will he fall down the ladder of a _please don’t do this_ to _do everything I tell you or face the consequences?_

“I—” Gavin pauses for a moment, like he is considering his words carefully. “I lied to you. Before. About the fighting. I shouldn’t have. I feel really shitty about it but—Fuck, I didn’t know how you’d react if you knew the truth, so I lied and thought—I thought… I don’t know. That I could get away with it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t… get into a fight at a bar,” he says quietly. “It wasn’t like that. I thought it made me sound better if it was. Somehow. You know in the movies, when there’s a girl getting harassed and there’s a heroic dude that shows up out of nowhere and beats the shit out of the guy messing with her? Like, usually the hero ends up with the girl but I don’t even like girls so it’s not really—”

“Gavin?”

“Sorry. I mean I’m a fighter. Like a boxer or something, but a bit… more illegal? Not exactly illegal. Not exactly legal. It’s a gray area. They pay me a lot if I win.”

“You fight for money?”

“Yeah.”

He sits back against the booth, sinking into the old leather of the seat.

“That’s why you wouldn’t tell me what your new job was?”

“Yeah.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want to scare you away.”

“But you also didn’t think we’d last, so—”

“I didn’t think we’d last but it wasn’t like I wanted us to end as soon as possible. If I could put it off, I would.”

“I don’t understand you,” Connor whispers. “I don’t—You—What do you even want?”

“I want to be with you.”

“But you—you don’t have any faith that _I_ actually want to be with _you_. You think we’re destined to fail. Why even bother?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t—I haven’t _bothered_ in a while,” he says. “But you. Connor— _you_ are—”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Connor says, standing up suddenly. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

“Connor—”

He moves as quick as he can towards the door, shoving it open into the warm air of the night. He needs to go home. He needs to run away. Back to _Sumo’s?_ To Chloe’s? To Hank, just above the café, probably passed out already?

_God._ He doesn’t know. Home feels empty. There’s no point in being at work. There’s no reason in waking Hank or Chloe with his problems.

Instead, he just walks as fast as he can, his hands shaking, even though they’re stuffed in his pockets. The quarter is clasped in the palm of his hand, digging into it, leaving a circular indent on his palm. The other hand is pressed against his phone, trying to decide if he should pull it out of his pocket or not.

Niles would still be awake. The time difference between here and there is three hours. He might be just barely thinking about sleeping—

“Connor, would you fucking stop—”

He feels a hand on his arm, spinning him around. Gavin looks like he’s out of breath, like he’s annoyed.

“You asked me what I want,” he says. “But what do _you_ want?”

Connor stumbles backwards, his arm freed from Gavin’s grip. It was barely held, barely even there. Easily broken.

Like them.

Gavin takes a step forward and he takes another back, hitting the back of a bench. They haven’t been this close together before. Not really. Not since they were squashed in the small space behind the counter at the café, but that was different. That was before Connor thought of them as anything other than mediocre rivals.

“Do you want this?” Gavin asks, his original question left unanswered for too long.

“I don’t even know what this is,” Connor whispers.

And he doesn’t.

They don’t touch. They don’t kiss. He hasn’t thought of it that much because Eddie wasn’t affectionate. They didn’t hold hands. Their kisses were rushed, always turning into something more than it started out as.

He doesn’t even know if he’s capable of being soft and affectionate.

But they aren’t really friends, either. They flirt, unabashedly. He thinks about kissing Gavin. At night, it leads to so much more in his head.

They aren’t boyfriends, but they go on dates.

They aren’t friends, but they aren’t dating.

It was easy, when talking to Chloe and Hank, to reduce their relationship down to dating. To call it that. It’s too complicated to explain all of this out over and over again. The connection they share. How quickly it formed, how it is hellbent on staying there.

“What do you want us to be?”

Too big of a question.

Break it down, turn it into something easier.

_What do you want us to be?_

Together. _Together._

“I don’t know.”

Gavin steps forward and Connor doesn’t step back—not because he knows he can’t, but because he doesn’t _want_ to. He moves, just slightly, when Gavin’s hand when it comes up, when it rests on his cheek. Away? _Towards?_

These simple touches between them—a tilt of Gavin’s chin, a brush of lips across his fingers, the sweep of a thumb across his cheek—it is too much to process.

If they had started out as anything else, if they had been holding hands and kissing and hugging from the start, would these tiny actions mean so much to him? Would they feel like they are breaking things apart like a sledge hammer against a wall?

“What do you want, Connor?” Gavin whispers, and his hand is moving slightly, falling to his neck, a slight pressure that is pulling him down ever so slowly. “It doesn’t—It doesn’t have to be an answer that’s going to solve everything. It can be anything. Just tell me what you want.”

He can hear Hank’s voice in the back of his head, _Gavin is violent._ He can feel it pressing down on him. The reason he ended things. The reason he can’t continue them. The fear that the wounds on Gavin’s body would transfer to his own. He doesn’t want to see the purpling of bruises on his torso again. He doesn’t want to see the spill of his own blood.

“I want you to stop fighting,” he says, his voice barely working, his lips barely moving. He is terrified of the words, of how they feel when spoken, how it makes his body ache with the thought of controlling another person’s life even if violence is wrong, even if Gavin could be on the verge of serious health issues. “I want to know when I see you that you aren’t just finished punching someone. I want to know that the bruises on your hands are from something stupid like catching yourself after you’ve tripped and not that you hit someone or something so many times that you’ve broken the skin. I want to know that the marks on your body are from accidents and not someone trying to knock you out for money.”

There is a small pause, a brief moment in which Connor stops talking, tries to figure out all the other things he wants, tries to make it clear how much he hates the idea of seeing Gavin in pain because—

Well, because he doesn’t want to see Gavin in pain.

And because he doesn’t think this is a solution to his problems.

“I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want you hurting.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’ll stop,” he says. “I promise.”

“That easy?”

“Yes,” he says, and he leans forward slightly, his movement like a video playing one frame at a time, overthinking every action. “Anything else?”

“Anything else?”

“Do you _want_ anything else?”

A lot of things.

“I want to kiss you.”

There’s a small quirk of Gavin’s lips, another movement forward. Connor breathes in sharply, turning his head just enough that Gavin sees it and stops.

“I don’t want it to be like this,” Connor says quietly. “I don’t want our first kiss to be like this. I don’t want to be…”

Unhappy seems like the wrong word.

He is. He isn’t.

“Okay,” Gavin says, his hand moving from Connor’s cheek to the front of his shirt, resting against the fabric. “We don’t have to.”

“Can I—”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

There’s a small laugh that escapes Gavin, a smile on his face that looks dangerously sad, “Okay, finish.”

“I want to—I want to hold you. I just…”

He just wants to be held. He wants to feel the warmth of another person. He doesn’t want to be alone.

 

 

Gavin’s hand moves again, from the front of his shirt to his waist, pulling him close. He feels Connor’s arms wrap around him and he buries his face against Connor’s shoulder to keep his wince hidden. Connor’s holding him too tight. The pain of his ribs is agonizing.

He decides that it’s a good pain.

He hasn’t hugged someone in six years.

He forgot how nice it was, even in a moment like this.

And he finds that he’s glad Connor decided they shouldn’t kiss tonight. He doesn’t want his first kiss with him to be like this. Filled to the brim with too much negative emotion, mixed too confusingly with positive.

And fuck, he doesn’t even know if Connor decided to be with him. He took that sentence that _I don’t want our first kiss to be like this_ as confirmation that they were back together, whatever that means. Whatever they are. It’s still left so unanswered.

 

 

_June 6 th_

_I want to kiss you._

Gavin runs his fingers over his lips for the thousandth time, feeling them like Connor actually kissed him. They feel like they’ve just been kissed, and they haven’t. He can’t even handle Connor telling him that, what is he going to do if— _when_ —they actually kiss?

 

 

_June 9 th_

**Gavin:** i’m watching this movie rn

**Gavin:** nd the guy was all like

**Gavin:** baking and shit.

**Gavin:** ok nvm youu don’t really need the specifics theyr not important

**Gavin:** it just made me think of you.

**Gavin:** and how much i want to see you.

**Gavin:** i wish u had more days off work.

 

_June 12 th_

When he leaves the café, Gavin is waiting outside, head tilted slightly to the side, watching him lock the door. Connor smiles, automatically, but it’s different than it was before. He was never aware of how fragile they were until they cracked, and now it’s all he can think of. If he were to see Gavin with a bruise on his jaw or a cut on his lip now, would he run the other direction? Would he stay, because he knows how much it hurt to leave the first time?

“Is it wrong of me to assume—”

“No,” Connor says quickly, pocketing his keys. “No, let’s go.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Okay,” Gavin says, biting his lip, but the smile still grows across his face. “Can I—Can I hold your hand?”

_Yes. Absolutely._

Connor reaches out and takes his hand hesitantly in his own. He doesn’t realize how much his fingers are trembling until Gavin squeezes his.

He likes the way their hands feel together. Like they are perfectly made for one another. His own are soft, old burns scattered across his fingertips and his palms from baking, but still soft. Gavin’s are calloused and scrapped and rough from years of use. They have matching scars on the space below their thumbs, a stretched out crescent moon.

He wonders how Gavin got his.

 

 

_June 13 th_

“What?” the voice doesn’t belong to Niles, it’s Markus, tired and vaguely annoyed. It’s strange to recognize it—strange to hear it spoken _to_ him instead of in the background.

“Is Niles there?”

“He’s asleep.”

“I know, can you wake him?”

There’s a deep breath, the sound of the phone being brought away from his ear.

“Niles? Niles, wake up.”

There’s a soft sound of irritation, muffled words he thinks is probably _go away._

“Niles, it’s your brother.”

A movement of bedding and limbs, the pass of a phone.

“Connor? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, curling into himself, turning the quarter over in his fingers. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“It must be nearly four in the morning there—”

“Nothing’s wrong, Niles,” he repeats. “I’m just—You know, a year ago, when you called me? And you told me how happy you were? Like things were starting to make sense?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“I didn’t understand that then. I do now. I just—I wanted to tell you. I should’ve waited until morning, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Markus hates me now, doesn’t he?”

“No, he loves you. More than me, probably.”

Connor laughs, leans against the window with a stupid smile on his face. He hasn’t met Markus before—only looked up pictures to match it to the voice. At the time, he had a brief, one second fantasy of a different life. One where he stayed playing music, one where he worked alongside Markus, one where he was the one to come home to Markus instead of Niles.

Then, he decided, it was probably too weird to think, even of the possibility, of dating his brother’s boyfriend, even if in the fantasy they had never met.

“I have someone,” Connor says quietly, deciding this is the simplest way to phrase it without lying. “I really like him. I didn’t… I didn’t know it was possible. To be happy.”

_Again._ To be happy _again._

“What’s his name?”

“Gavin.”

“Alright—Go back to sleep, Markus, I’ll come back in a minute,” Niles replies quietly. He hears the sound of a door opening, shutting again. “Tell me about him.”

“How much time do you have?”

“For my brother? All night. But I do have to get up in five hours for practice.”

He could fill every minute of those five hours with details about Gavin.

But he doesn’t.

He limits himself to five minutes. He cuts out the parts where Gavin showed up with a bruise, where he had the remnants of a cut on his lip that caught the angle of the light just enough to be visible. He tells Niles instead about holding his hand, about the feeling of _rightness_ in it, of the quarter he passes his finger over, that he keeps on his person at all time.

There will be other nights, other long phone calls to be had, where he can talk of the bad things, but he knows they must accompany the story of Eddie, and he isn’t quite ready to tell anyone that. Not when it was ripped from him, torn out of his hands against his will, when he had to tell Hank and Chloe. He wants the next time it has to be said to be on his terms.

 

 

_June 14 th_

He waits until the right time. It’s difficult to find—any more than ten minutes and he feels like he should be working on mixing the batter for a cake or the dough for cookies. It seems wrong to purposefully finish everything up, leave the oven to cool, nothing to worry about.

But he does. He forces himself to, even if it doesn’t give him an excuse to run away again.

He knocks on the door, waits, opens it.

“Hank?”

“What?”

“Can I talk to you?” he asks, stepping inside, pulling the door closed. He already knows the answer, but he waits for it anyways.

“Yeah, of course.”

Connor wants to sit, but he can’t get his feet to move any closer to the desk.

“I—” he pauses for a moment, breathes in a deep breath to try and calm the shake of his fingers. They’ve been doing that a lot lately—trembling. With Gavin it was different—with Gavin it was a reminder that he hadn’t really held hands with Eddie unless he was being pulled along like a child being taken away from a candy display. It was the newness of it, the comforting factor of them. “I think you’re wrong. About Gavin.”

“Wh—”

“I broke up with him, if you can call it that, it’s—it’s difficult to say. But I did. Because I thought about what you said, and I thought you might be right but,” another breath, another failed attempt to steady himself. “I want to be with him. And he’s trying to be different, he’s trying to be better, and I think—I think I can’t judge who he was before as who he is now.”

“You’re just going to ignore that he used to beat people up for fun?”

“No,” Connor replies, shaking his head. “No, of course not. But I don’t have the full story. I don’t know what happened.”

“I can tell you—”

“I think you can only tell me what you saw and what other people told you, not Gavin’s side. Did you ever ask him? About why? At any time?”

“No—”

“Maybe you should have.”

They both grow quiet for a moment, Connor’s eyes drifting to the dark wood of the floorboards, the scratches in it from moving furniture around without taking proper caution of it.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says quietly, shrinking against the door. “I know I’m disappointing you, but I don’t want to hide him from you. I don’t want it to be like before. I like him. I want to know who he is now and understand who he was.”

“If he touches you—”

“You’ll kill him,” he says with a weak smile. “I know.”

“I don’t approve of this.”

“I know.”

“I hope you’re making the right decision.”

So does he.

 

 

“Chloe?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

“You’re with him again, then?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m happy for you.”

 

 

_June 19 th_

**Gavin:** is it stupid to miss you already?

**Connor:** It’s only been 18 minutes.

**Gavin:** i miss you tho

**Connor:** I miss you, too.

**Gavin:** so its not stupid?

**Connor:** No.

**Gavin:** ok.

**Gavin:** then i miss u a lot.

 

 

_June 25 th_

Gavin shows up because he has to. Because he has no choice in the matter. They wouldn’t let him cancel, they wouldn’t let him leave. He’d managed to get out of the weeks before because of the bruising on his ribs, but they’ve decided they’re healed enough he can come back.

So, here he is, wrapping his hands again, promising himself he will do better at blocking his face this time.

He used to be so good at it. His thoughts were only focused on the fight, on making sure not a single scar was added to his features. He hates the one he has, he hates seeing it in the mirror and thinking about how he got it.

He’ll do better this time.

He will.

And then he won’t come back.

 

 

_June 26 th_

He doesn’t know what’s going to happen when he shows up. Somehow, them holding hands the last two weeks has changed everything. Gavin is more nervous now than he was before. He can feel his stomach flipping over and over again as he reaches out towards Connor, in that brief second that Connor will decide to hold his hand again or leave it completely.

But he takes it, like before, with his fingers shaking the slightest bit, and Gavin holds tight, tries to keep them at bay, tries to comfort him as best as he can.

“Gavin, I—”

“Stop,” he says. “Just—wait a second.”

He looks over Connor’s face, taking in every detail. The street lamps here are dim, one of them broken and causing an eerie darkness over the sidewalks, the empty pavement of the road. The moon is big, full, bright, casting a soft white glow over Connor’s features.

And fuck—

Gavin knew he was pretty, but it hits him all over again just how beautiful Connor is. It’s hard to imagine that Connor is spending his night with _him._ He could be with anybody. He could have anyone.

And he chose Gavin?

Not entirely. They are still in the realm of the unknown with their relationship. They have held hands twice, but they aren’t technically dating. He wants to change that. He wants to say the word _boyfriend_ without second guessing himself, without feeling like he’s lying.

“Are we—Do you—Will you—”

He can’t figure out how to get the question out. If it should be a question, if he should form it as a statement instead. A question in disguise, waiting for confirmation or denial.

“What?”

“Can I call you my boyfriend?”

Connor smiles, looks away towards the end of the street in maybe a vain effort to hide it, “Technically, you can call me whatever you like. I can’t stop you.”

“Connor, you know what I meant.”

“We haven’t even kissed, Gavin.”

“Okay,” he says, taking a small step forward. “Can I kiss you, then?”

Connor looks back to him, the smile on his face turning into something else. A trace of one, in his eyes, gone from his lips. He gives a tiny nod.

Gavin steps forward, his free hand pulling Connor down, standing a little taller to make sure their lips meet properly.

And he tastes like strawberries.

Of course, he tastes like strawberries. They are the only thing Gavin ever sees him eat. They haven’t even gone to the diner yet and his lips taste exactly like them.

And the problem with waiting so long to kiss him is that now it’s all he wants to do. He hasn’t had a real relationship in so long he almost forgot what it was like. He forgot all the good and the bad but even now, with the warmth of Connor’s body so close to his, with the taste of strawberries on his tongue, it’s all he wants.

Connor’s hand is on his waist, gripping tightly at the fabric, the edge of it riding up, his pinkie touching the skin there. It feels like so much more.

If they were in a room, if they weren’t out on the street, would he pull his shirt up? Would he take this further?

_No._

Gavin breaks the kiss suddenly, stopping it short and strange. He isn’t going to turn this into something overly sexual. He wants it to be soft, he wants to to be quiet, he wants it to be good, to stand on its own. He doesn’t want the memory of their first kiss to be tangled with the memory of their first time, or the first time Connor rejects him, or the first time Gavin realizes he has to reject Connor.

“Okay,” he says, his hand coming up to Connor’s shirt, holding onto the fabric tight. “How about now? Are you my boyfriend now?”

“Unquestionably.”

 

 

_June 29 th_

**Gavin:** ive been thinking for the past few days abt something

**Gavin:** nd i feel i should tell you bc it’s very important

**Gavin:** u look very pretty in the moonlight, connie

**Gavin:** i wanna go star gazing w/ you

**Connor:** Please don’t call me Connie again and I will.

**Gavin:** deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's pretty telling that the only book i've read about baking is a thriller.
> 
> Writing / Editing music;  
> Youth - Daughter  
> I Tried Getting High - Unlike Pluto  
> Moonlight - Allman Brown (which I happened to listen to today and it's the exact... tone and vibe and aesthetic i want for this fic... i'm crying)


	4. July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Baking, by contrast, was solving the same problem over and over again, because every time, the solution was consumed. I mean, really: chewed and digested. Thus, the problem was ongoing. Thus, the problem was perhaps the point.”  
> Sourdough - Robin Sloan

_July 1 st_

**Gavin:** sat night, we go stargazing.

**Connor:** No diner?

**Gavin:** do u wanna go to the diner?

**Gavin:** we can still go. we can do both

**Connor:** Best not to stay out too late. One or the other.

**Gavin:** stargazing then.

**Gavin:** u excited?

**Connor:** I’m always excited for our dates.

 

_July 3 rd_

“It’s a shame the fourth landed on a Sunday this year,” Gavin says as they walk down the street. The same distance is kept between them. Carefully calculated so that even their hands don’t brush up against each other’s when they walk. Even though they’ve kissed, even though sometimes they hold hands, it still feels… strange. They’ve been trained to keep a gap between them. It’s hard to close now. “We could have watched fireworks together instead.”

“People set off fireworks the entire month, and they will certainly set them off tonight,” Connor replies. “It’s not as if we won’t see any.”

“It’s not the same,” Gavin says as his hands move to his pockets, same as Connor’s are.

He wonders if they do it for similar reasons. If Gavin tucks his away to control the urge to reach out and grab his hand. Connor would let him, if he tried. He hopes he would, anyways. He hopes he wouldn’t pull away with the reminder of the last person that held his hand.

“I am free tomorrow, you know. If you asked me to go out with you, I would.”

“Really?”

“Yes, _really_ ,” Connor says. “You’re my boyfriend, why do you always seem so surprised that I want to go with you?”

Gavin stops, turns towards him.

“What do you mean?”

“You always look shocked when I’m waiting for you on days like these. You always seem like it’s—like it’s some big plot twist I actually want to hang out with you, to see you, to go on dates to the diner _._ Do you think I’ve been lying this whole time?”

“No—”

“So, stop,” Connor says. “I like being around you. I like talking to you. I like seeing you every Saturday. I’d love to go with you tomorrow. I’d love to see the fireworks with you. I want to go, okay? Trust me. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

“Good.”

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“I’d really like to kiss you.”

“Oh, okay,” he feels his face heat up, and this time he isn’t saved by the shadows of the night to cover it. He’s sure Gavin can see it. He’s sure because there’s a smile spreading across his face as he leans forward and pulls their lips together.

Gavin must be well aware of the affect he has on Connor. He has to be. How could he not?

 

 

They go to a park—almost completely empty with the lateness of the night by the time they reach it. Gavin drops his bag, pulls out a blanket and lays it across the grass. He pauses as he smooths out the corners, as Connor comes around the other side to help pull it taut.

“Is this dorky? Or cheesy? Or whatever other adjective there is?”

“Absolutely.”

“But you don’t mind?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Okay, good, because I—I’ve never really done this before,” Gavin says, gesturing to the blanket. “You know. The cutesy date things.”

“I haven’t either.”

He looks up to Connor’s face, watches the smile that he had before disappear, “You haven’t?”

“No, but it’s not—it’s not important,” he replies, looking up to the sky. “The stars are, right? Do you know of any?”

He fumbles through his memory, listing off as many constellations as he knows, reverting to however many astrological signs he can remember, as they lay down beside each other. A few inches of space between them. Not enough to replicate how they walked here.

But even so—with them laying down, the ratio is different. Laying beside someone is different than walking next to them on the street. Before he only needed a foot of space. Laying down? He needs five yards to keep himself in check.

“You said before I was beautiful in the moonlight,” Connor says, and Gavin looks over at him, at his flushed face mostly hidden by the dark. It makes him retreat into himself, a half attempt to hide from the embarrassment. “Am I still?”

“Is this a not so subtle way of asking me to compliment you?”

“No—”

“You are,” he says anyways, turning to lay on his side. “Any time, any place. Were you never told that before?”

“People don’t typically call boys beautiful, Gavin.”

He reaches a hand up automatically, resting against Connor’s cheek, brushing his fingers along the edge of his jaw. He knows his eyes are drifting towards Connor’s mouth. He knows how much he wants to kiss him and how he’s still holding back. But they have only really, actually dated for a week. It seems like too short of a time to be kissing Connor every chance he gets or every time he wants to (which is almost always the same thing).

“They’re idiots then,” he says. “They think beautiful can only apply to girls?”

“Maybe it’s just the people in my life.”

“You need new people.”

Connor smiles, but it’s weak, half-hearted. His hand reaches up from his side, rests lightly over Gavin’s, “That’s why I have you, isn’t it?”

He really is something. And Gavin knows he doesn’t see it. He knows Connor doesn’t see how much Gavin really wants him. He knows that Connor is completely unaware of the effect he has on him. How absolutely irresistible he is.

“Can I kiss you?”

His smile shifts, something more genuine than it was before, “Yes.”

Relief floods through him. He hadn’t been aware of how much he was tensed up, waiting for the _no_ , waiting for Connor to shake his head, pull away, get up and run. And he’s here. He’s really here.

“Gavin?”

“You,” he says, leaning down and pressing a quick kiss against Connor’s lips. “Are… entrancing.”

“Entrancing?”

“Mesmerizing. Hypnotic. Enthralling.”

“You have any other adjectives?”

“Incredible.”

Connor’s smile fades a little and his hand moves to the back of Gavin’s neck and pulls him down towards him. Their kiss is deeper this time, longer. A press of their lips that Gavin knows will leave him breathless. A kiss he knows he’ll think about later tonight as he gets ready for bed.

They break apart, but their faces are still close together, their bodies are still pressed against one another. Connor reaches up and brushes his fingers over Gavin’s lips, tracing the shape of them.

“You know I think you’re beautiful, too, right?”

He’s not. He’s attractive—sure, but he isn’t _beautiful._ Not on the same level as Connor. Never on the same level as him. A step below. Or five. The scar on his nose throws the balance off, too. It makes him much uglier than he would be without it. And ugly is fine. It’s okay. He’s had his whole life with this face, he’s had too many years to learn the way his scar mars his features. He’s okay with it.

But he doesn’t say this. He doesn’t want to listen to Connor insisting that he’s beautiful.

So he gives a weak smile and catches Connor’s fingers in his hands and presses a soft kiss to the tips of them. They came here to stargaze. They should. Even if it ends up being Gavin watching him while Connor watches the sky.

 

 

_July 4 th_

The fireworks are beautiful. They always are. He came here just to see them, and just so he can hold Gavin’s hand somewhere other than the walk between _Sumo’s_ and the diner.

“Stop,” Gavin says quietly. “You’re supposed to be looking up.”

Connor smiles and drops their hands back to their side, his eyes from their scarred hands to Gavin’s face, the way the scar on his nose curves across his face, the imperfections of his skin.

“I meant at the sky.”

“I know,” Connor says, and maybe if they had kissed more than three times, he would be able to lean forward and leave one on his cheek or his forehead like he wants to, but the thing inside of his stomach prevents him. Too soon for so much affection. He doesn’t even know how capable of it he is.

Before, there was not affection in his relationship unless it was passed between them as an apology. _Sorry for making you do that,_ he would’ve said, hugging him and leaving tender kisses against his cheek, _I know you didn’t want to._

Connor doesn’t regret his kisses in the street or the park with Gavin, but he almost wishes—

He almost wishes they hadn’t happened, outside, in public. He wishes it had been behind closed doors, where things didn’t get so close to being like they were before. Where they would belong exclusively to just the two of them.

“Connor, are you alright?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice suddenly hoarse, his smile suddenly false and sad. “I’m great.”

Gavin leans up, presses a soft kiss against his cheek, like he’s read Connor’s mind. And it helps. Even though they’re still out here, still surrounded by people—it helps. Because in the small, gentle action he is reminded that it _isn’t_ like before. Gavin _isn’t_ Eddie. This kiss _isn’t_ meant to manipulate him. His smile shifts as fingers squeeze against Gavin’s.

“Better?”

“Better.”

 

 

“Do you live close to _Sumo’s_?” Connor asks, and his eyes are up towards the sky, watching the remnants of a firework show on the other side of town.

“Yeah,” he replies. “It’s about a fifteen minute walk.”

“Oh,” he says, with a small smile. “I—Is that why you went there before?”

That and the comfort of someplace that felt almost like—

Home? What a home should be? To not be alone, to be surrounded by strangers, but also to have a familiar face he could see. It was never quite what he was looking for. _Comfort._ He found it someplace else.

With _someone_ else.

“I live thirty minutes away,” Connor says. “I take the bus every morning to work.”

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking—” he says, coming to a stop, pulling Gavin to halt with him. “I have to work tomorrow. Early. And I stayed out rather late with you. So—”

“You want to come over and cut your travel time in half?”

He watches Connor’s face turn red and he thinks he likes the sight of it. He likes Connor blushing and flustered.

“I don’t—It’s late, you know? So, nothing could happen between us—”

“I’m not going to try and fuck you, Connor.”

“O-okay.”

 

 

Connor likes Gavin’s place instantly. It is messy but undeniably _Gavin’s._ There isn’t anything here that doesn’t feel like it is somehow a vital part of his persona. The beat up leather couch that sits in front of an empty entertainment center, the cracked computer screen on a broken desk, the shelf overloaded with anything that can fit on it.

And the absence of things, too—

No picture frames. No photographs of family or friends. No little items left behind on counters or surfaces that belong to someone other than Gavin.

“Am I the only one that you let come here?” Connor asks, meeting his eyes.

“No,” he says, but his voice is defensive. He’s lying. And that fact—

That tiny fact—

That _Connor_ is the only person to be in Gavin’s apartment, that he is the only one to show up here in who knows how long, makes his heart shatter for Gavin’s loneliness and stutter at the thought that _he_ is _something_ to Gavin.

He hasn’t been imagining it.

Connor steps forward, towards Gavin, his hand sliding forward and around his waist. They haven’t kissed since they went stargazing together. Like it was a fluke. A one-time (three-time) deal. He told Hank the next morning, watched him as he looked annoyed at the fact he now has knowledge that the guy he used to work with and hates is kissing Connor.

“Connor—”

“I really like you, Gavin,” he whispers. “I’m…. sorry that…”

“Sorry?”

“I don’t know,” he says, leaning forward, pressing his face against Gavin’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I just wish—I wish that I wasn’t—”

So closed off. So busy building walls he can’t let someone tell him he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t know how to word it. He doesn’t know how to say it out loud. That he’s sorry he didn’t let Gavin kiss him sooner. That he’s sorry they could have been doing more than sitting across from each other at a table and holding hands a few times.

“Are you alright?”

“No. Yes. No.”

Why had he come here? Because he wanted to say fifteen minutes on his way to work? Because he wanted to see Gavin’s place? Because he wanted to force their relationship to a stage where they could nonstop hold hands and kiss and cuddle and be the annoying affection couple that people always complain about? Because he thought something as simple as being in Gavin’s living room would somehow change everything when all it’s doing is reminding him of—

“I don’t know how to do this,” he says quickly. “I don’t know how to be… with someone.”

He watches Gavin’s face shift, the subtle change in his features as he tries to make out the words.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not—I don’t know—I don’t know how to be…. _soft._ Or… affectionate. Or—”

He bites his tongue. It is so difficult to explain this. That he has crafted for himself a kind exterior, that he has worked hard to force it into his personality, to integrate it so tightly it no longer is an act. He has surrounded himself with positivity and happiness and working towards becoming who he wants to be but—

It is so easy to work towards it when he is alone. But Gavin, in front of him—

It brings him back. It brings him back to getting his throat squeezed until he can’t breathe. It brings him back to bruises blossoming across his skin because his boyfriend like the way they looked. _Like watercolors_ , he’d said, and suddenly Connor liked them too.

He doesn’t know how to do anything other than hold Gavin’s hand. He barely kissed him back in fear that he would bite his lip, that he would scrap his nails across his skin.

Connor can see what at a loss for words Gavin is right now. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to think. He just sees someone standing in front of him on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

“Who was it?”

“What?”

“Who did this?” Gavin asks, reaching up to him, touching the side of Connor’s neck. Is there a scar there? There could be a scar there. Connor used to think there was. He checked a hundred times every day for a year trying to see if there was a scar there.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It _does_.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

He watches how it annoys him. The twitch of his nose, the way he works his mouth, the narrowing of his eyebrows. And then he watches it fade away, slowly.

“Okay, we won’t.”

 

 

_July 5 th_

Gavin leads him to the bedroom, his eyes glancing over to the clock. Barely after midnight. Connor’s going to get only a few hours of sleep. He almost feels guilty about it.

Almost.

Maybe about as guilty as the desire to beat the shit out of whoever hurt Connor before, which he wants to do and has to tell himself repeatedly to unclench his fists, breathe slowly. _No fighting._ That’s what Connor told him. He’s pretty sure murder would fit under that umbrella.

Sides, he used to be a detective. He can’t _kill_ someone. No matter how much he wants to.

And sides _Connor_ is in _his_ apartment. He’s in his _bedroom_. Gavin handed him clothes to sleep in and he can feel his stomach spinning in a vicious cycle as he waits on the other side of the door because _Connor_ is getting _undressed_ a few yards behind him in _his bedroom._ He’s going to wear _his clothes._

The door opens and he turns around quickly, like he needs to see Connor as fast as possible. The clothes don’t fit him as nicely as they could, but it’s still a shirt that Gavin has worn almost every night for the past five years. It’s his favorite pajama bottoms, with the rip along the knee. He’s never going to be able to wear them again without thinking of how they look on Connor.

“You look like one of those guys in the movies that sees their prom date for the first time,” Connor says, smiling softly.

“I feel like it.”

“You’re—” he cuts himself off, biting his bottom lip. “You’re very cheesy.”

“Should I make a joke and ask if you’re lactose intolerant?”

“Shut up,” Connor says, looking away, hiding the smile spreading across his face.

“Okay, I’ll stop,” he replies, taking a step backwards, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll sleep on the couch, alright?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No?”

“I think we’re capable of sharing a bed without having sex, Gavin. I’m not going to make you sleep on the couch in your own apartment.”

“It’s fine. It’s a comfortable couch.”

“Are you sure?”

He wants desperately to lay in a bed beside Connor, and it isn’t like he’s a sex crazed maniac, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Connor wants to curl up next to him or if he wants to bury himself in Connor’s arms. He just knows that their first night together shouldn’t be like this.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

 

 

In the morning, when Connor’s alarm goes off, he has to take a minute to remember where he is.

_Gavin’s._

It’s Gavin’s blanket wrapped around his shoulders. It’s his pillow that he had his face resting against. He takes a second and pulls it around him tighter, breathes in the scent of it and the shirt he’s wearing. He hasn’t been able to do this with Gavin yet. It hasn’t been long enough, they haven’t been as _loving_ as they could be. They haven’t tested these boundaries yet.

But here, alone, before the sun has even started to rise, he can press his nose against the fabric and pretend it’s Gavin’s shoulder. It’s the scent of cologne and leather. Inexplicably Gavin. Like the messiness of the apartment. Like the scars on his hands.

Connor dresses slowly, shedding the shirt and the pants and replacing them with the clothes from the night before. Hank and Chloe didn’t see him yesterday—they would never know that he’s worn them two days in a row.

But he feels like it’s a neon sign above his head. _He slept at Gavin’s._

To anyone, it would be read as he slept _with_ Gavin.

And God, he wants to. But he needs time. He needs this to go slowly. He doesn’t want Gavin stripping him apart from the inside out the same way Eddie did.

He passes through the living room, glancing over to Gavin as he forces his feet into his shoes left by the door. If they’d been dating longer than two weeks, if Connor was a different type of person, a _bolder_ person, he might cross the space and leave a kiss against his forehead.

But instead all he can do is walk over and tentatively reach his hand out to Gavin’s face, rest it like a ghost against his cheek.

_Beautiful._ Gavin really is beautiful. He got it wrong. He flipped it backwards. The words belong to Gavin, not to him.

He’s beautiful.

And entrancing. Mesmerizing. Hypnotic. Enthralling.

_Incredible._

 

 

July 10th

Gavin leans against his hand, watching Connor cut into the pancakes like he does every Saturday. They’ve been talking nonstop, filling every second with their roundabout way of avoiding the topic of Connor staying over at his place. And it isn’t that there’s anything to discuss about it. Gavin woke up to two texts from Connor. One being a picture of him sleeping, the other with a sparkling heart emoji with _you’re very cute, sorry I couldn’t stay!_ It made him smile. He keeps looking at it, the implication of the words.

_Sorry I couldn’t stay!_ Would he have, then? Would he have stayed?

“Hey,” he says, cutting off Connor in the middle of a sentence about the difference between icing and frosting which he wasn’t paying close enough attention to even remember how they got here. “Do you want to come over again? Not—not next weekend. I’m busy. But, how about the week after? On Saturday instead of Sunday? So you can stay in the morning?”

“I’d love to,” Connor says, smiling. “You’re busy next Saturday, though? Are we—”

“Our date is still on. I made time for you.”

“You made time for me?”

The two of them are so stupid sometimes. Constantly questioning whether they want the other one around when it’s incredibly obvious they do. It’s hard for Gavin to believe, but how could Connor really think Gavin doesn’t want him there?

“God,” Gavin says, looking towards his coffee. “You act like you’re not my boyfriend sometimes. Of course I would make time for you. I only get to see you once a week.”

“Technically, it’s only been three weeks.”

“You mean you wouldn’t make time for me?”

“I always make time for you, Gavin. _Sumo’s_ is much more than a fulltime job.”

“So why are you surprised—” he pauses, Connor’s words catching up to him. “You’re the only baker at _Sumo’s_ , right? Hank makes you work like eighteen hour days? Why doesn’t he hire someone else to do the second half?”

“I didn’t want him to.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I like to bake. I needed a distraction from some personal problems. Chloe and Hank are my only friends—I never needed a reason to have time off of work when I could be there.”

“You planning on going the rest of your life as single and celibate?”

“It’s not like it would be the worst thing in the world,” Connor replies, his eyes cast towards the table. “I—I was very unhappy. And I’ve been working through it. It wasn’t supposed to be a permanent situation, I just needed time. If I told Hank to hire another baker, he would.”

He bites his lip.

_If_ he told Hank to hire another baker, he would.

Which means he hasn’t. Which means he doesn’t want to. Which means Gavin, even if they’ve only officially dated for three weeks, is going to still only see Connor every Saturday night with the rare exceptions of Sunday mornings.

Maybe he shouldn’t feel hurt by this, but he does. He knows how he feels about Connor. He knows that if they stay together, his feelings are going to grow deeper and deeper. He knows that he is capable of loving Connor. He knows how close to the precipice he already is.

Is it stupid? Is it too soon? Three weeks they’ve dated. People have said they loved each other in three days. It’s not that crazy, is it? And it’s not like they only met three weeks ago. He remembers how much his heart ached when they stopped.

It’s technically been almost four months, hasn’t it? Or is it three? Fuck, he doesn’t want to do the math. It feels like they’ve been together forever. It feels like it’s only been a day.

“The twenty fourth,” Gavin says slowly, trying to stop the conversation from heading into an argument, of him saying things he doesn’t know if he has the right to say yet. “That alright with you? To stay the night?”

“Yeah,” Connor says, with a little nod. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

 

 

_July 16 th_

He doesn’t have the money. He hates that he doesn’t have the money. He hates that no one will hire him. He hates that now he has to lie to Connor when everything feels like it’s falling into place. Like everything is how it _should_ be.

 

 

_July 17 th_

“Gavin.”

“Elijah.”

“What do you want?”

“It’s your birthday,” Gavin says, a small voice in the back of his head saying _just barely_. There’s only an hour left in Elijah’s time zone. Only three hours left here. “I just wanted to say hi. You have friends celebrate with you? I know—”

“Thanks. Goodbye.”

“Christ, can you pretend that we’re good brothers? Or even just brothers?”

“No.”

The phone clicks, Gavin tosses it onto his bag, feels the urge to break something.

How have they ended up like this? How have they turned themselves into such monsters that hate each other so fucking much? At what point in their lives did they switch from being brothers and friends to people who can’t even say more than two words without getting pissed off?

“Gavin, you ready?”

He glances down to his hands, tightens the bandage a little closer around his fingers.

“Yeah.”

He needs to punch something. He needs to feel someone punch _him._

“You’re late,” Connor says. He’s waiting outside of the café, leaned up against the door where the sign says _CLOSED_ behind him.

“Sorry,” he replies, knowing how out of breath he is. He sprinted all the way here even though his left leg felt like it was on fire. “I got caught up.”

“It’s fine,” he says, stepping away from the door. “Shall we go?”

Gavin reaches out and takes his hand, holds it tightly in his own, “Yeah, let’s go.”

 

 

_July 20 th_

“I forgot to ask you about North,” Connor says, setting a blueberry muffin down in front of Chloe at the counter. The place is empty, and he knows she hasn’t eaten since this morning. “Did she like the cookies?”

“She’ll eat anything,” Chloe replies, reaching for the muffin and tearing a piece off.

“Not what I asked.”

“She said they weren’t your best work.”

He smiles and leans against the surface, “Right. Of course not. Did she pay?”

“She paid _me_.”

“In something other than kisses?”

“Of course.”

“Something that is an acceptable currency to the United States?”

“No.”

“Chloe—”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t look it. “Don’t you and Gavin ever bribe each other? He doesn’t ever kiss you for a strawberry cookie or give you—”

“He doesn’t like sweets,” Connor says quickly, not wanting her to finish that train of thought. “And we haven’t… done… anything.”

“Wait—he doesn’t like sweets? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Connor says with a laugh. “I’ll convert him eventually.”

“Right. Maybe you can bribe him—”

“I have to go,” he says, stepping away. “I made a pie and I don’t want the crust to burn. Go back to daydreaming about North and stop thinking about Gavin and me.”

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“You… you know you can talk to me about this, though. Seriously. Not… not as jokes, right?”

“I know.”

“And if they—”

“I’m okay, Chloe, I promise,” he says, pushing the door open to the kitchen. “And I really do have a pie in the oven, okay?”

She gives a small nod as he disappears through the door. Connor leans against the counter, looking towards the stove, the twenty minutes still ticking downwards and, as always, he is grateful he can pretend that anything is on the verge of burning to a crisp if he wastes one second in a conversation. Even if it’s a lie.

 

 

_July 24 th_

It’s much different than their dates at the diner. There, they laugh and they talk and they spend the hours together filled with noise. But at the apartment? It’s quiet, almost peaceful. Connor sits on the opposite side of the couch and the television plays an episode of a show neither of them have watched and they break up the sounds of the commercials with the same conversations as they have every Saturday night, but this time their voices are lowered like they’re telling secrets.

Gavin hadn’t considered how intimate this would be. The proximity, the quiet, the night time, _them._ They’re alone. There’s no other people around them, no waitress, no wandering eyes that would stop them from doing anything.

It’s not bad, it’s simply different.

He isn’t sure when Connor falls asleep. It happens somewhere between the dramatic fight between sisters and the parallel fight between brothers. There’s too many names flying around, too much detail they’re missing out on. Gavin looks from the screen to Connor, see’s his face pressed against the armrest. Twitching like a cat would. The type of movement he’s always observed and never knew if it meant a nightmare of being chased by dogs or a good dream of hunting birds and rabbits.

But humans don’t _twitch_ in their sleep unless it’s a nightmare. They don’t scrunch their faces up like that unless something bad is happening.

Gavin reaches out, touches Connor’s shoulder lightly, shakes it a few times until his eyes open. He sits up quickly, brushing his hands across his face, through his hair.

“Sorry, I was—”

“You were having a bad dream,” Gavin says instantly, because he doesn’t want to listen to Connor apologize for falling asleep or trying to pretend that he isn’t about to cry right now. “Do you—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Can we—Is—” Connor twitches his nose, blinks his eyes and looks away. “I just really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he says quietly. “That’s fine. We don’t have to.”

 

 

_July 25 th_

He wants to know. He feels guilty for wanting to know. He feels guilty for feeling like he can’t help without knowing what the problem is.

They sit on the couch with the television playing crappy old movies. The acting is mediocre, the writing is terrible, the plot is atrocious. But it’s nice to watch something that doesn’t matter. Where anything could happen. The hours pass as Connor drifts in and out of sleep on the other side, as he moves a little closer to Gavin each time he abruptly wakes up.

At some point, when the killer’s identity is revealed to be the husband all along, Connor leans his head against Gavin’s shoulder. It is stiff and uncomfortable and Gavin moves to pull him close to his chest because he feels like if his arms aren’t holding Connor together he’s going to fall apart right in front of his eyes.

“It’s okay,” he whispers.

He feels Connor relax against him. Just slightly.

He knew before that Connor wasn’t what he thought he was when they first met. He wasn’t a pure hearted innocent boy. He knew that his relationship with his brother was wrong. He knew that the way he avoided talking about past relationships that something might be there, although they were good at avoiding the topic in general.

But it’s different to _know_. A smudge of knowledge in the back of his brain.

Someone hurt him. Badly. Badly enough that Gavin knows he wasn’t imagining the slight shake of Connor’s hand when he reaches out to them when they walk together. Badly enough that they have made Connor _question_ himself.

He wants to kill them. He wants to punch them until they’re no longer breathing, until their lungs are so full of blood they can’t do anything else but choke to death on it.

“Gavin?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Gavin reaches up, passes his fingers through Connor’s hair.

Before all this—before he met Connor—he didn’t think this would be him. He thought he would be the one on the other side, the one reluctant to let someone hold him. Connor is turning him into someone else. Someone—

_Softer._

“Connor?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I might love you.”

Connor sits up, pulling himself from Gavin’s arms. There’s an expression on his face that is a mix between a smile and like he’s been wounded. Like Gavin said something that’s going to make him cry.

“I think I might love you, too.”

They kiss and it isn’t like it was before.

It isn’t at all like it was before, except Connor still tastes like strawberries. It’s slow, as if they are just know discovering the possibility of kissing as something they could do. Maybe they are. Maybe the other ones were a fluke. He wishes this was their first one, the way it draws out, the way his heart beats in his chest, the way Connor’s hands feel against his neck.

The position they’re in—with Gavin slumped against the couch, with Connor twisted in front of him. The hands on his neck are so gentle that if it wasn’t for the warmth they create he would hardly know they were there. Connor is being cautious and Gavin doesn’t _want_ him to be cautious. He wants him to be reckless, he wants to shed every piece of themselves until they are nothing but souls left hanging in the air.

_I don’t know how to be soft._

He does, though. Connor knows how to be _soft_. He knows how to be as gentle as he possible can be like one or both of them are made glass. They aren’t. They are steel and titanium. Gavin knows this. Nothing, _nothing_ can break them apart.

But he likes this, too. He likes the way Connor’s lips feel against his. Ghostly kisses against his lips. He’s okay with this. He likes this.

He really likes this.

Gavin tries to mimic it. The light touches. He places his hands on Connor’s waist, simply holds their bodies together. Whenever this ends, whenever they break apart, he hopes they can get back to this.

 

 

_July 31 st_

It’s weird sitting across from him at the diner now, seeing him smile, hearing him laugh, watching his fingers play with the straw wrappers and tap out rhythms on the table mindlessly and haphazardly.

It’s weird because a week ago he had a dream Gavin’s hands were around his neck and they were pressing so hard when he woke he thought there would be bruises. In his dream, Gavin had been seconds from killing him versus here, now, Gavin is smiling more than Connor has ever seen him.

He wouldn’t do that. Connor knows that. When he woke up, he knew the person in his head was meant to be Eddie and he was only wearing Gavin’s face. It didn’t have to make sense in the dream, and it happens all the time.

Gavin certainly wasn’t the first.

Chloe and Hank and Niles have all tried to kill him. They have all had imaginary counterparts brandishing knives or fists and he always woke up thinking _That was Eddie._ It was his _essence._ It was meant to be _him._ Somewhere along the way his brain skipped a step, it jumped on the wrong train, it went the opposite direction on the road. He wore a different face, but it was always him.

It’s weird, because it was the first time it’s ever been Gavin, and now Connor can’t keep his eyes off the movement of his hands as they pour sugar into the cup of coffee or they make quick cuts into the waffles or they reach across the table to hold Connor’s fingers.

He has scars on his hands. Scars that match his, they mirror his own.

But Gavin has bruises on his knuckles, too. Little cuts across some of them that look they have fresh blood on the edges.

They are the hands of a fighter who has fought recently.

And Connor isn’t quite sure if he can ignore that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cannot BELIEVE i forgot to share [this wonderful art](https://same-side.tumblr.com/post/177996792969/speed-painted-a-little-something-for-alekszova) for the fic in the last chapter but i am now <3
> 
> writing / editing music;  
> Rose - Honest Men  
> Moonlight - Allman Brown


	5. August

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This was why she enjoyed baking. A good dessert could make her feel like she'd created joy at the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, the people around the table were no longer strangers. They were friends and confidantes, and she was sharing with them her magic.”  
> Heartless - Marissa Meyer

_August 1 st_

Connor turns over in his bed, pulling the blanket up over his head, burying himself in the pile of pillows beneath him. He can’t think about anything other than Gavin’s scrapped up knuckles. He needs to ask about them. _He has to know_.

But things are _good_. They are incredibly good. He feels _happy_ and sometimes he catches himself smiling or Hank or Chloe will see him and comment on it and it’s—

He doesn’t want to ruin this. He doesn’t want to ruin his happiness when it felt like it would take years to finally feel it again.

And beyond that—

Every aspect of his life was controlled by Eddie until the moment they broke up. And it’s different, isn’t it? Gavin fighting other people based on a mutual want for money. It’s different than starting fights in bars or choking someone out for fun. _It’s different._

But it’s not. But it is.

It was so clear to him before. _Violence is violence_. He can’t be around it.

But he really, _really_ thinks he might be in love with Gavin.

And it’s difficult to sacrifice that when he thought that he wasn’t capable of being loved by anyone.

 

 

Gavin draws his fingers across the bridge of his nose, tracing the line of the scar. Some days it seems to fade away a little bit. He’s seen it enough times that he can forget that it exists.

And other days—

Other days it is impossible to ignore. He keeps running his finger along it, knowing every slight difference in the texture of it. It makes him want to punch something. Every reminder of his father and his childhood makes him want to punch something and sometimes it’s impossible to pretend that he doesn’t have that urge.

He hears his phone ring from across the room, is thankful for the excuse to stop staring at himself in this stupid mirror. He walks over to it, picking it up to see the single heart emoji sent from Connor. It’s nothing. But it’s a lot.

He feels guilty for messaging one back, for pocketing his phone, for getting ready to go to the gym to beat on a punching bag before the night fight.

 

 

He is a second from knocking on the door when it opens and North storms out past him, her face scrunched in anger, pulling her bag up further on her shoulder. She stops a yard away, turns on her heel.

“Connor.”

A statement.

“Yes?”

“You came over to see Chloe?”

“Yes.”

She still looks pissed, but he knows that her resting face is almost always a little bit angry. It reminds him of Gavin, how even in his sleep he’s ready for battle. Connor wants to reach forward and rest his hands on hers (his) shoulders, tell her (him) it’s okay.

“Alright. Have… fun, I guess. And thanks for the cookies.”

He hesitates, responding only with a slight nod as she heads to the elevator. When he looks back to the apartment door, Chloe has her hand on the door, poking her head out to watch North walk away.

“What happened?” he asks.

“She got called into work late,” Chloe replies. “She’s very unhappy about it. What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve called—”

“No, don’t worry about it. Come in.”

He steps into her apartment, the door closing behind him as she sinks back onto the couch where she always sits when he’s here, where she probably was moments before.

“I needed your opinion on something,” he says, sitting beside her. “About Gavin.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“When we—when we… broke up, or stopped meeting or… I don’t know what it was—”

“You can say break up. It’s easier, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, okay,” he sighs. “When we broke up before, it was because he was… doing something that I didn’t think was right.”

“Connor?”

He looks up at her, hadn’t even realized that his eyes had drifted down to focus on the stitching in the couch cushions. “I can’t tell you what it was.”

She gives a short nod. _Okay. Go on._

“He told me he was going to stop, and I believed him.”

“But he’s still doing it?”

“I think so. I don’t know for certain—”

“Connor, if it’s something big enough for you to want to break up with him and never see him again, then maybe—”

“I think I love him, Chloe. It changes things. It was different then, I wasn’t—I wasn’t certain before, about how I feel about him. But I want to be with him. I do.”

She’s quiet for a moment, like she’s mulling over her word choice carefully. When she finally opens her mouth to speak, Connor is a second from going into a monologue about all the reasons he and Gavin _shouldn’t_ break up again, like he’s trying to convince himself and not her.

“You didn’t come here to ask me my opinion about staying with him,” she says quietly. “You asked for my opinion on something else, didn’t you?”

“I want to ask him to stop.”

“And you need my opinion on that?” she asks it in a way that is a genuine question, a slight tilt of her head, softened features. It isn’t sarcastic or annoyed or impatient. She really wants to know. And that’s always the thing he loved best about Chloe. That she actually _cares_.

“There were a lot of things I didn’t do because I wasn’t allowed to before,” Connor answers. “It isn’t—It’s not about… I don’t know how to say it.”

“You’re afraid of controlling him like you were controlled.”

“Yes.”

“Is it different?” Chloe asks. “Is it something that he can get hurt doing? Something dangerous?”

“Yes,” he whispers, and it comes out hoarse and broken and wrong.

“Then you shouldn’t feel bad about asking him to stop.”

“I was given a lot of ultimatums—”

“Did Eddie ever force you to stop doing something that was harmful?”

“No—”

“Didn’t he force you to do things that _were_ harmful?”

“Yes—”

“Connor, it’s different. You’re not turning into him. Your relationship isn’t turning into what it was like before. It’s different.”

 _It’s different._ He is so tired of hearing that word. He is so tired of hearing people say that something is _different_ when half the time it isn’t _different_ at all.

“I’m scared, Chloe.”

“I know you are.”

“If he says no—it’s over. It has to be over. For real this time.”

He can see in her eyes how desperately she wants to ask what _it_ is. They never really kept secrets before, but he knows how she’ll react if she knows that Gavin is fighting. It changes _everything_. She will associate Gavin with _her_ ex. She will turn on him.

And he doesn’t want her to turn on him, because he knows there is good in him. He knows Gavin is trying. He knows Gavin is _different_.

“You’ll have to take that risk, then.”

He closes his eyes and leans against the back of the couch. He wants to to shut down. He wants the day to be over. He wants to go see Gavin, but he also knows that the next time they see each other the first words out of his mouth will be _are you fighting again?_ and he wants to keep that at bay for as long as he can.

Silence and ignorance is better than the knowledge that they might be done for.

 

_August 2 nd_

He is so happy to be baking. He is thrilled to be in the kitchen with the smell of cookies in the oven and the sound of the food processor running. It brings his focus away from real life, plants it in the middle of Hank’s recipes. _Two teaspoons. Three cups. Four minutes._

Sift. Stir. _Stabilize_.

_August 5 th_

**Connor:** What do you do on rainy days like today?

 **Gavin:** sleep. daydream. is there something i'm meant 2 do?

 **Connor:** I don’t know. It just seems like a good reading day.

 **Gavin:** u wishing I was there to read u a story?

 **Connor:** Yes. Come over and read me Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Your voice is fit for audiobooks.

 **Gavin:** r u being serious because I will absolutely be over in a heart beat if you are

 **Connor:** First half no, second half yes.

 **Gavin:** you like my voice?

 **Connor:** Yes. A lot.

 **Connor:** You should call me before you go to sleep and talk to me.

 **Connor:** I could fall asleep to your voice.

 **Gavin:** where are u right now? at work?

 **Connor:** For another hour, yes.

 **Gavin:** i'm gonna come over there in ten minutes, ok?

 **Gavin:** i don’t wanna disrupt yr job or anything alright?

 **Gavin:** so just.. don’t say anything.

 **Gavin:** it’s a 2 second visit. that's it! then i'll be gone.

 

 

He hears Chloe’s voice before the door opens and he turns on the stool to look towards Gavin as he steps into the kitchen.

“Two seconds, alright?” he says, walking across space towards him.

“Gavin—”

“Two seconds.”

Gavin places his hands on either side of his face, lifts his head up just enough so that he can press his lips against Connor’s. It isn’t two seconds. It’s much longer than two seconds.

And the first few seconds are nice and happy and they make the butterflies in his stomach do a dance that they hadn’t done before. But then it turns strange in his chest. Mangled by the reminder of his scuffed-up knuckles and his promise that he broke.

Connor isn’t the one to pull away—instead it’s Gavin, retreating slowly until he’s a few steps back from the counter.

“I’ll see you Saturday?”

“Y-yeah. Saturday.”

_August 7 th_

“Hey, are you ready—”

“I need to talk to you,” Connor says, staying flat against the door of the café. He’s late again. Connor doesn’t know how to make sense of that fact. Is Gavin late because he’s out fighting? Is he late because he’s just not on time? Is he only aware of this now, bothered by it, because he knows that the marks on Gavin’s hands mean there are probably bruises underneath his shirt?

“About what?”

“I—I know—I mean, I don’t know—I think—”

“Connor?”

“Are you fighting again?” he whispers. “I don’t—I just want an answer. That’s… that’s all I want.”

He watches Gavin contemplate this, and maybe that’s what makes him realize he has to start fighting back tears. Because Gavin isn’t answering right away which means he’s contemplating _lying_ about this. That the answer is most definitely _yes_ but Gavin doesn’t want it to be.

“Did you ever even stop?”

Gavin shifts his weight, lets out a small sigh, “Yeah, I stopped.”

“But you started back up?”

“It was only a few fights. I had to make rent. I had to buy food. Connor, I tried looking for a job, no one would hire me—”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you fight, Gavin?”

He bites his bottom lip, shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away, like he can’t look at Connor anymore. He stands like that for a moment, watching the street, his eyebrows pulled together in thought. When Gavin finally turns back to him, he pulls his hands from his pockets and holds it out to Connor. He stares at it for a moment. The hands that have caused bruises and maybe broken bones. The hands that mirror his scars. The hands that fit perfectly into his own.

“If I tell you,” Gavin says, his voice suddenly quiet. “I have to show you something, and I can’t do that here.”

Connor should ask why. He should press. Maybe he should even feel scared right now, but instead all he can do is take Gavin’s hand and hold it tightly like this might (and, really, it _might_ be) the last time they ever do this.

“Okay.”

 

 

Gavin thinks that maybe his fingers might be shaking right now, that the only thing keeping them still is Connor’s grip on him. They make their way up the stairs in his apartment building, past the door, into the darkness of the living room.

For a moment, he doesn’t want to turn the light on. He wants their eyes to adjust to the black of the room, to the little light of the street lamps below and the moon shining through the window. He doesn’t want Connor to see this clearly.

But the light still flickers on and it makes him slump away from Connor and against the wall in a half-hearted retreat. His hands come up unsteady to the zipper on his jacket and he pulls it down, sheds it slowly until gravity is the one that makes the final decision to drop it away.

“Gavin?”

He is hiding them. The scars. He has to force his hands away from their shitty attempt to cover them up. He’s so used to hiding them, he can’t even stop himself when he knows he’s meant to be revealing them.

Connor isn’t the first to see. He isn’t even in the first dozen to see them. He has slept with plenty of people, had boyfriends that didn’t last very long because they always knew underneath, even without physical imperfections, that Gavin was never _right._

His scars have been worshiped and they have been despised. They have been ignored and they have received hundreds of kisses. He doesn’t think Connor is the type to look at him with disgust but—

_God._

He doesn’t want Connor to be the type that looks at him in _pity_.

“It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t—It doesn’t _fix_ anything or excuse it, but… a few years before Hank left the DPD—” he pauses, feels the need to revise what he’s saying. “The Captain had glass walls in his office. I—I got into a fight. He pushed me through it.”

“Who did?” he asks it like he’s terrified of the answer.

“My father.”

He watches Connor’s face shift, the layer of sadness that takes over it, the way his eyes fill a little with tears, the way he has to bite his lip to keep it from trembling, “And it wasn’t the first time?”

Posed as a question, when Connor already knows the answer.

“No.”

The two fall silent as Connor breathes in a shaking breath, quick and shuddering. It takes Gavin a minute to realize what he’s feeling. Not the look of admiration from boys that want a damaged thing to play with. Worse than disgust. Worse than pity.

It is _understanding._ It’s a relation to the pain. An almost numbness to it.

Because they’ve both been put in shitty situations during their lives, because they both wear scars from it.

He hadn’t considered that before. That even with Connor’s vague talk of a past lover who hurt him might be similar to the abuse he had suffered himself.

“Connor?”

“I—” he cuts himself off, steps forward instead. “I need…”

“What?”

“I don’t know—” Connor says quietly, reaching out slowly to Gavin, pulling him forward by where his hands can grasp onto his shirt. “I don’t know what to say or what to do.”

“You don’t have to say or do anything,” Gavin says, and then Connor’s hand is on his cheek and he can’t help but turn his head slightly, to lean into it. He wants to turn more, he wants to press a kiss to his palm, he wants Connor to kiss him. It is the same undeniable urge he had when Connor told him he liked his voice.

Because something so tiny about himself that Connor would love, something so important to his being, to want to fall asleep to him talking?

He had to go there. He had to kiss Connor. He had to walk away after because he needed it to be a moment on its own.

And the way Connor is leaning down towards him, the hesitant movement, the letting Gavin complete the journey on his own volition—

It feels like a first kiss. How many times are they going to have to kiss before it stops feeling like the first one replaying itself over and over again? Or is it always going to feel like this?

Connor pulls away slightly, breaks their lips apart but leans forward still, so their foreheads touch.

“You don’t have to fight anymore, Gavin.”

And he _knows_ he doesn’t. His father is dead. His father has been dead for a while now. But he still—

He still barely feels safe.

“Gavin?”

He hates crying. He hates crying in general, but it’s even worse like this. He hates crying in front of someone like Connor, someone he cares for so much that he can barely breathe and now he’s sniveling and he can’t get the tears to stop no matter how many times he brings his hands up to brush them away.

Connor catches his wrists, holds them still for a second before brushing his fingers across his cheeks, doing the work for him.

Fuck. The boy thinks he can’t be soft and he does this? He looks at Gavin like that? He treats him with such tender care and such gentle touches and he still thinks he’s incapable of affection.

“I—I just want you to hold me,” he whispers, the words are mangled and stuttered and they barely come out but Connor nods and pulls him into his arms and holds him close, holds him tight.

He wishes an acceptable amount of time had passed between them. That he could say he loves Connor right now and know that he means it and he isn’t caught up with emotions at a time like this. He wishes that they had already said it and that it wasn’t an in-the-moment type of thing.

Because he feels it. His heart _hurts_ with the weight of it.

 

_August 8 th_

They lie in the bed together, the closest they have ever been, the only time they’ve shared this space. Gavin is curled against his chest and it feels right, like he fits perfectly against Connor’s body like this, with their legs tangled together, with the blankets and the sheets haphazardly pulled around them.

But Connor doesn’t _know_ what he’s going to do anymore. He looks over his shoulder at the clock, read out the _1:16 A.M._ that it blinks back at him. He’s exhausted. He could fall asleep at any second if he let his eyes close but for some reason he can’t. His thoughts keep circling back to Gavin, how he had never seen him so vulnerable before. One wrong move, one wrong word, and Gavin would shatter.

Did that thought used to fill Eddie with the exhilarating feeling of power? Is that why he always put Connor in situations like that? He hates it. He hates seeing that look on Gavin’s face, he hates seeing him cry.

He feels Gavin stir against him, a nuzzle deeper against his chest where his heart beats fast.

He loves him. Connor loves him. He doesn’t want to let him go. He doesn’t want to control him. He feels terrible that these thoughts are swirling in his head, that one minor thing could break them.

 _No._ It won’t.

Things are different. It’s not an excuse, the scars on his arms do not give him a free pass to use whatever violence he wants but—

Gavin has spent his whole life fighting. Connor doesn’t need him to say that out loud. He could see it written on his body, in the way he holds himself. He has always been on guard. He has always been ready to deal with a situation wrongly. _Not an excuse._ An explanation.

He reaches upwards and brushes his hand through his hair, leaning down to press as gentle of a kiss as he can manage against his forehead and Gavin movies again, blinks his eyes open this time with a soft mumble.

He waits a few seconds until Gavin falls back asleep again, the quickness of it makes him smile. _He loves him._ He has the smallest bit of peace here, now. Connor just wants it to last.

 

 

He wakes from a dream where the details shake off easily, leaving only the traces of a strange slumber that makes him feel like he was running from something or towards something. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good. The alarm rings loud and clear through it, though, cutting through the fog with a suddenness that makes him sit up straight, pulling away from Connor in a strange speed to silence whatever it is so that he can go back to sleeping.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, his voice thick with sleep as the light of his phone illuminates the dark room bright enough to make Gavin squint and flinch away from it. “I forgot to turn it off. Go back to sleep.”

But he can’t. The adrenaline of his dream is in his veins still, and it’s the strange wakefulness that leaves him without a hint of tiredness, despite the few hours he managed to get.

And now all he can think of is the night before. Of him shedding his jacket, of him collapsing into Connor’s arms. It feels like it didn’t happen. That that was the actual dream that had happened, that in reality he _was_ running from something. He hasn’t cried in front of someone since he was—

Fuck. He doesn’t even know, it’s been so long.

“Connor—”

“I shut it off. Don’t worry. It’s not for work. I’m staying—”

“Connor, are you going to break up with me?” he asks, forcing his way through like the alarm did. Clean slice. Break it apart.

“Wh—why are asking?”

_Because of the fighting. Because of the violence. Because of the scars._

He shrinks in on himself, feeling ready to hide them. He hates them more than anything else. He’s gotten used to sleeping with night shirts on that show them, has gotten used to seeing the way they look in the mirror in the morning before he covers them up or when he showers and is left naked and scrubbing across them like they’re made of ink and they can wash away. He’s even exposed them to strangers on one night stands or left them bare to seem tougher in one of the fights but—

This?

_Connor?_

He cannot stand the idea of Connor seeing them. They feel like a neon sign for all of his damage, laid out for everyone to see. He wants Connor to think of him as perfect and whole, even if he never is. Or at least, hiding the catastrophic parts.

“I still lied to you,” he says instead, because he knows, logically speaking, that Connor wouldn’t break up with him because he was abused or because he has scars. He isn’t that superficial. He is not like the people that have looked at him like the most vile thing on the planet. But they didn’t talk about the fighting. He hadn’t shown Connor his scars to distract them, he hadn’t cried because he didn’t want to have this conversation. He showed them because he needed to answer Connor’s question.

 _Why do you fight?_ Because it was all he was ever taught and now it boils up inside of him until it overflows and he can’t stop it. He can’t ever fucking stop it. There’s a leak inside of him and no matter what he does he can’t seem to repair it.

“I know.”

“You shouldn’t—you shouldn’t be with someone violent.”

“I know. But you aren’t.”

“I _am_.”

He looks back to Connor, who is sitting cross legged in the bed, rubbing his fingers along the edge of his phone, turning it over and over in his hands.

“I don’t want to break up, you don’t want to break up, let’s not—let’s not try and make it happen, alright? You don’t—” he sighs and sets the phone down, forces his hands to stay still against his knees. “You don’t need to try and convince me you’re a bad person, Gavin, you aren’t. And I trust you. I l—I like you.”

“What if I refused to stop fighting?”

Connor opens his mouth, closes it again. _Right. Of course._ Connor won’t tell him what happened. Gavin can make his own assumptions. He can understand that they share a link of brutality, but they reacted in opposite ways. Connor wants to spend every waking moment baking and looking for only the good in the world and he wants to punch as hard as he can and only look for the evil.

He hadn’t considered that in a negative light before. How absolutely different they are. Before, he thought it was good. That it was what made them work so well. But maybe it’s why they don’t work _perfectly._ Maybe that’s why he feels like every second he’s with Connor it’s not enough but it’s also too much because eventually Connor will see it, too. The bad. The ugly.

He’s seen it before.

Does any couple work _perfectly_ , though? There are always going to be downsides, there are always going to arguments and things that make each other upset. There’s just a fine line on these things. The frequency of the negative.

Maybe their negative is too frequent.

“You would break up with me, if I did,” Gavin says quietly, saying the words Connor won’t. “You don’t—You don’t want to tell me to stop again, but you would break up with me. You’d wait, for weeks or months or something and pick out something else and pretend—”

“Stop.”

“You would leave. Because it’s a deal breaker. And I understand that, but—”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you deserve better.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re an idiot,” Connor repeats, moving across the bed towards him. “It was terrible and awful when we broke up before, I’m not doing that again. I’m not letting _you_ do that. You fight. I hate it. I don’t want you to do it, but you do. It’s not—it’s not something I can ignore, but it’s not—It’s not the same, okay? So, just shut up. Stop thinking you aren’t good enough for me.”

“But if I don’t—”

He watches Connor breathe in and look away, biting down on his lip hard, like he can’t figure out what to say. That he doesn’t want to have this conversation now? But that it needs to be said? Something about the movement stops Gavin from speaking, of them falling into a silence.

“Do you want to fight, Gavin?” he asks finally. “Do you like it? If it weren’t for me, would you keep doing it because you like to, or because you have to, or because you _want_ to?”

He doesn’t know.

He hadn’t considered it in terms of liking or disliking it before. It was an outlet for his anger and his stress, but so was a punching bag or lifting weights or running. When he hopped on a treadmill or did pullups, it was nearly equally effective. _Nearly_. He hadn’t even considered fighting (for money, at least) until someone bribed Gavin to fill in for him on a random Thursday night, and Gavin accepted because he was broke and had nowhere else to go.

He thought he liked the feeling of punching someone and pretending it was his father and he was finally getting his revenge. He thought he liked the way bandages looked on his skin and tending to wounds because it gave him something to busy himself with, to feel like somehow, in the end, he _was_ taking care of himself.

Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he would have never been posed this question if Connor didn’t have such an aversion to violence. If they were different slightly different people, Connor would be in his apartment vaguely annoyed and smiling at the way Gavin flinches when he cleans his wounds. Maybe he would be the one to put a band aid on his cut and this would never be a problem at all.

But they are not different people.

“I don’t.”

“Then stop.”

“I need the money—”

“I’ll help you find a job. I’ll make Hank create a delivery service or something. Or I’ll teach you to bake,” and he says it with a small smile, half genuine, half sad. They haven’t solved the issue of all this, though. That Gavin lied to him. That Connor shouldn’t have forgiven him for that.

Their relationship, their _real, actual_ relationship was established based on Connor’s assumption that Gavin wasn’t fighting anymore. It feels like it should invalidate everything.

But it’s not.

Because Connor is pushing Gavin back against the wall, straddling his lap, tilting his chin up.

It’s late. They shouldn’t do this. Stressed out, emotionally drained, exhausted. _They shouldn’t do this._

“I’m not going to break up with you, Gavin Reed,” he says quietly, leaning forward to press their lips together. Soft, quick, enough for Gavin to reach and grab tight onto the back of his shirt. _They shouldn’t do this._ “Do you want to break up with me?”

“No.”

“Do you _plan_ on breaking up with me?”

“No.”

“Good,” he says. “Don’t… don’t do that again.”

He’s glad Connor is kissing him again. It gives him an out of saying that he can’t promise that he won’t. He has no idea what they’re going to end up as. If they’ll break up in a few years because of some other stupid mistake, if they’ll last forever, if they won’t last even another day.

Doubts are terrifying little creatures. They live in the back of his head and they leave claw marks in everything they touch and those wounds never seem like they are quite able to heal completely.

His thoughts start to slip away at the feeling of Connor’s hand against his neck, the way it rests so lightly against his skin and he’s reminded again of how reckless he wants to be with Connor. Of how much he just wants to be on the other side of things when he doesn’t have to spend so much energy in being careful and cautious.

But,

_They shouldn’t do this._

His hands moves up underneath Connor’s shirt, his fingers touching Connor’s spine, the other held onto his waist, slipping down across his thighs. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ He wants to get rid of Connor’s jeans, he wants to press kisses into that skin there, he wants to hear what Connor sounds like when he’s on the verge of collapsing.

He pushes Connor backwards against the bed, leans over on top of him, breaks their kiss in his movement to do something. Pull off his shirt, undo his belt, _something._

But then he sees the way Connor is looking up at him, the way he averts his gaze immediately.

He doesn’t want to do this. Not yet. Not tonight.

Gavin lets out a shaky breath and leans back.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “I’m—I’m going to sleep on the couch. It’s late. Or it’s early. I don’t—”

“You don’t have to go.”

“It’s okay. Comfortable couch, remember? We need our rest,” he leans back down only enough to leave a gentle kiss against the corner of Connor’s mouth. He doesn’t trust himself with more. “Go back to bed. Get some sleep.”

He leans away and Connor grasps onto his hand for a moment, intertwining their fingers together for a moment. He is not telling Gavin to stay. He’s giving him a quiet _thank you._ He squeezes back, lets go, leaves for the couch.

Gavin blinks his eyes open, stares at the ceiling for a moment. There’s a faint noise in the distance, a car alarm going off, sirens distant, someone above him yelling. They are all louder than the sound of Connor’s footsteps. They all accumulate into one thing:

It’s late. The sun is up, blinding him as it slants through his windows and he sits up slowly, scanning the room in some attempt to find the time, but instead all he sees is Connor walking towards the door.

“You’re leaving?”

“No,” he says, then gives a small laugh, “Well. I thought—I thought about it. Just to the store and back. You have no food in your fridge. I was going to make you breakfast.”

Gavin stands, half ready to walk across the room and hold onto Connor and make him stay because he feels like they never have enough time together. Like somehow spending every second they have right now will make up for the fact they barely see each other through the week.

And maybe it’s obsessive—wanting to see Connor more than one night a week. He doesn’t know. He’s never had a relationship like this before. Where he wanted more of someone. Just them, their _being_. Not more sex or more kissing. He just wants to _talk_ to Connor _more_.

“Do you want to come with?”

He makes his way across the room and wraps his arms around Connor’s neck, buries his face in his shoulder. He hates shopping. He hates shopping for food, especially. Who even likes to? But, yes, _absolutely_ , he will go with Connor anywhere.

“Gavin?”

He leans back enough to kiss him. It lasts longer than he means to, and he has to force himself to break it off so he can answer him, “I’m sorry. About last night.”

“It’s okay.”

It’s _not_ , but he allows it to be brushed aside even though it feels a little wrong and instead he extricates himself from Connor’s arms, as difficult as it is.

“Let me get dressed, I’ll go with you.”

_August 12 th_

**Gavin:** having fun at work?

 **Connor:** Of course.

 **Gavin:** good. I just. wanted to interrupt ur day w/ a quick question.

 **Connor:** Yes?

 **Gavin:** are you my appendix?

 **Gavin:** bc I have a feeling I need to take u out.

 **Connor:** You sound like a hitman.

 **Gavin:** you wanna be my target??

 **Gavin:** love story of the ages is a hunter falling in love w/ its prey.

 **Connor:** I think I’d be a better hunter than you.

 **Gavin:** what?? you’re no hunter! what are you gonna hunt down?? cupcake recipes???? sugar???

 **Connor:** Well, you certainly are sweet. I think you fit into the criteria.

 **Gavin:** ok. Ok. Smooth. ♥

 **Connor:** But I might eat you, and then where would we be?

 **Gavin:** heyyyy … very happy maybe ;)

 **Connor:** That wasn’t meant to sound dirty.

 **Connor:** Ahh. Too slow.

 **Gavin:** that’s what you get for trying to b grammatically correct.

 

 

_August 14 th_

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” Connor asks, leaning on his hand, eyes stuck to the table. Gavin has noticed he does this sometimes, when he’s afraid of the answers to his questions.

“No,” he says. “Unless you count church.”

“You go to church?”

“No, not at all. I just… I wanted to see if you’d believe me.” he says with a small laugh. “Do I look like the type?”

“You could have a crucifix hidden under there,” he says, pointing towards his shirt. “But with how often we only see each other at night, I would assume you’re a vampire, therefor it would be burning you right now.”

“Maybe I have a high pain tolerance.”

“Oh, so you are?”

“You want me to bite you?”

Connor smiles and turns his eyes back to the table again, “Seriously, though, are you free?”

“Yeah, of course. You wanna do something?”

“Tomorrow is my birthday,” he says with a small sigh, like this is a secret he didn’t want to tell. “Hank is going to have a party. Me, him, Chloe. A few others. I’d like you to come. It’s… big enough that you won’t have to interact with Hank directly if you don’t want to. Small enough it’s not a huge party, not too overcrowded but… empty enough to not feel like you’re singled out. Does that make sense?”

“It’s the Goldilocks of birthday parties.”

“Yes.”

“You bake your own cake?”

“Hank did it. He refused to let me, even though he knows I’d have fun with it.”

“You didn’t give me enough time to get you a present.”

“I don’t…” he trails off and shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t mind, not having them. It’s more of spending time with people. Not the presents.”

“You don’t like your birthday?”

“Not really. It’s my brother. We used to always celebrate them together. He’s gone now, and it’s just… weird. Feels wrong.”

Gavin reaches across the table, holds Connor’s hand in his, rubs his thumb across the back of his hand, across each finger.

“I’ll be there. No presents, if you really don’t want one.”

“Good,” Connor says, and he doesn’t bother hiding his smile, and it makes Gavin smile, too. Connor, _happy_ , and all he had to do was go somewhere with him when he would’ve wanted to anyways.

Was he really anxious about that? That Gavin might not come? He wants to ask, find out _why_ but Connor is already taking the conversation somewhere else and he’s left drifting along behind him, trying to catch up.

 

 

_August 15 th_

He calls because he has to. Because he can’t let the fear of it going unanswered take over the fact he has to call his brother. He listens to it ring three times, feels his heart skipping a little more and more, turning the quarter over in his fingers, feeling the ridges in the sides, the raised imprint of the pictures.

“Hello?”

“Niles,” Connor says, a smile creeping up onto his face. “How are you?”

“Tired.”

Man of many words.

“I wanted to say happy birthday.”

“Oh?” Niles says, and there’s a shift on the other side of the line, a soft whisper that Connor can’t make out. He knows it belongs to Markus. It has to. “Is it our birthday?”

“Yes.”

“Well—Markus, go back to sleep.”

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“It’s fine.”

There’s another movement, a sound of loud footsteps against hardwood, a closing of a door. They sit in silence for a moment, Connor’s stomach twisting. It’s not an uncomfortable silence it’s just—

It feels _wrong_ somehow. Like they didn’t have silences between them before and when they did it was comforting for neither of them to have to fill it. This—this is _different_. It has settled over them like a blanket they can’t find the way out from under. Like Connor has to fill it with words.

“I—” he starts, then pauses. How much information does he give Niles? How much does he spill?

He’s never asked himself that question before. Not unless it was in reference to Eddie.

And that forces the words out of his mouth.

“I have a boyfriend.”

“Gavin? He isn’t just a _someone_ anymore, he’s a _boyfriend_?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been dating?”

“Since the end of June.”

“And you’re just now telling me?”

“You didn’t tell me about Markus until Christmas.”

“He’s a very private person.”

Connor bites his lip. The _private_ aspect of their relationship was not as skewed and malicious as his own. He wondered if it was. He constantly wondered if Niles was hiding bruises underneath those long sleeves. He constantly wondered if Markus was pushing the boundaries of their relationship further and further.

Markus is nice. Connor likes him. In another lifetime, if he had been the one to pick up the flute or continue the violin, he might’ve been the one in the apartment instead.

But it doesn’t really matter how nice Markus _seems._ Eddie seemed nice, too. People are good at putting on a face for others.

“Do you like him?” Connor whispers, unable to stop himself from saying the words.

“I love him,” Niles replies in an instant. “What’s the matter?”

Connor sets the quarter down, moves to pluck at the edge of his pants where he knows a scar lies underneath the fabric. One of the few he carries. He’s always looking for more, like they might suddenly appear. A knife was held to his skin a lot more than he cares to admit.

“I feel…” he breathes in deeply, lets out all of his words with it on his exhale. “I feel like I’m happy and I feel like I’m wrong to be happy when I’m still so depressed.”

For a split second, he wonders if he’s said too much. If it is alright to say _depressed_ when Niles doesn’t even know what he’s depressed about. But they’ve both been able to group any sadness they feel under the _orphan_ category. The loss of their parents radically changed their lives but it also _didn’t_.

Physically, they were there, when they _had_ to be.

Emotionally, mentally, they were not. Ever.

Their deaths impacted them, to the point where Connor and Niles didn’t lie to each other about how much it affected them. It’s just that it isn’t the problem at the moment.

“Should I come to visit?”

“No,” Connor says, forcing his hands away from the fabric. “No, you have concerts and Markus. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re upset.”

“I’m not—”

“You just said you’re upset. Is it Gavin? Shall I come over there and beat him up?”

“No,” Connor says, with a small laugh. He brings his hands up and brushes away the tears that come with it. “It’s not Gavin. I promise.”

“You’d tell me if it was?”

“Of course,” Connor replies, his voice cracking. “I wouldn’t keep that secret from you.”

“I know.”

And he sounds so genuine when he says it.

_I know._

Because Connor has never lied to him and been caught. Because Connor came out to Niles first. Because Connor told him everything from the moment he could speak until the moment he started dating the wrong person. There has never been secrets or lies between the two of them until Connor stayed in Detroit and Niles moved to Seattle.

He doesn’t know how many lies are bottled up in his stomach. He doesn’t know how many infect his blood. But it’s more than it was before. A thousand times more.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”

“It’s a five hour flight. You don’t have the time.”

“I can make the time.”

“Niles—”

“Hey, you know I love you right?” he says, interrupting him. “If you need me there, I’ll be there.”

“The orchestra—”

“Fuck the orchestra.”

“And Markus?”

“Fuck Markus.”

“Terrible thing to say about your boyfriend,” Connor says, smiling. “You’d really choose me over him?”

“It’s not like he’d break up with me because I went to make sure my brother’s okay.”

“No, of course not.”

“And if he did? He’s not worth it. So, if you want me there, I’ll be there.”

“I’m fine. I said that already.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” Niles said, his voice dropping. “Well, happy birthday.”

“Yes,” Connor says, remembering what day it is again. “Happy birthday.”

 

 

“Happy birthday!” Gavin says, shouting it from across the street the second Connor locks eyes with him. He smiles and waits for him to cross. Connor reaches his hand out, taking Gavin’s as soon as they’re close enough, and Gavin pulls him forward, leans up to kiss him quick before saying quietly, repeating the words so that they’re only shared between only the two of them, “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you—”

“Wait,” he says. “I got you something.”

“I told you—”

“You didn’t give me a lot of time, so I had to think of something a little bit easier to do spur of the moment,” he leans up again and kisses Connor deeper this time, his hands holding onto him tightly. Gavin pulls away, almost reluctantly, like the kiss has stopped and started three times before he can finally end it. “You like it?”

“Oh,” he says. “Was that the gift?”

“What? We’re in public. I’m not gonna get all slobbery on you when there’s other people present.”

“Thank you,” Connor repeats, and he squeezes Gavin’s fingers tight because he knows Gavin really doesn’t understand the depth of his gratitude right now. “Really.”

 

 

The party isn’t boring. At least, not for Connor. It is for Gavin, in a vague sense. He likes watching Connor laugh and smile and be with friends. _Family._ He can tell how much they mean to him. He thought before it was just Hank and Chloe, that Connor was alone. It’s what he had said before. That there was only the two of them in his life.

But it’s not true. There are others and they might not be his best friends, but they don’t leave him all on his own. They contribute to his happiness in small, almost unnoticed ways. He keeps quiet, keeps to the back, like he’s an intruder trying to slip in and out of a house unseen.

Connor laughs again, and it is loud and it makes him smile and he can feel his chest constricting at how perfect this party must be for Connor right now. How he will look back on today and smile and remember all the best things he received from his friends or the joke North told that made him choke on the bite of cake he had still in his mouth.

Gavin fakes looking at his phone for a text, even though Connor said he could leave if he didn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want the day ruined because Connor is feeling guilty that Gavin wants to leave. And he doesn’t. He just—

He needs a second. Alone.

“Gavin?”

He turns back to Connor, reaches up high enough to leave a kiss on his cheek, “My brother called. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Okay.”

He disappears down the stairs, opening the door slowly and stepping out into the cool air. He leans back against the brick wall, resting a hand against his chest like he’s run a marathon and his heart and lungs haven’t quite caught up yet.

Two minutes. That’s all he gives himself. He could have more, he could pretend that the call with his brother lasted longer than this. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to go back inside. He wants to see that smile on Connor’s face again, he wants to hear him laugh.

The thing in his chest refuses to let go, but he forces a breath in, forces his feet to turn around, to go back up the steps.

Gavin makes his way back over to Connor, slips his arm around his waist, rests his head against his shoulder.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I just—”

He stops himself before he says it.

 _I love you._ And he does. Absolutely. Completely. _Stupidly_.

He wants Connor to know but he feels like he needs to reserve this fact, keep it bundled back beneath his ribs for a little while longer. He doesn’t want to risk it ruining this party for Connor. He wants to keep the memory clean from the possibility that Connor will remain silent in response.

_Next time._

 

 

_August 17 th_

**Gavin:** i have a problem.

 **Gavin:** do you think you can come over?

 **Gavin:** i know u have work tomorrow and late tonight but… its urgent.

 **Connor:** I’ll try.

 **Gavin:** ok. I need you to take care of this for me

 **Gavin:** ♥

 **Gavin:** that’s supposed to be my heart.

 **Connor:** You don’t make these jokes when we’re face to face.

 **Connor:** Is it because you know how bad they are? And you can’t say them with a straight face?

 **Gavin:** absolutely.

 **Gavin:** but you’ve said them too, so this is a 2 way street Connie.

 **Connor:** Fair enough, Gavvy-wavvy.

 **Gavin:** ick. don't call me that.

 **Connor:** Two-way street.

 

 

_August 18 th_

**Gavin:** ok, so it’s a definite no to Connie but what about other options?

 **Gavin:** Concon. Conniebear. Conman.

 **Connor:** Conman, is that what you think of me? And no to the others, too.

 **Gavin:** well… you did steal my heart.

 **Connor:** I recall you giving it to me yesterday.

 **Gavin:** technically an eletronic version doesn’t exactly count but. ok. ur point has been made.

 **Gavin:** what about... my love?

 **Gavin:** Babe? Darling?

 **Gavin:** sweetie-pie. cutie patattoeoit. nvm i don’t know how to spell that.

 **Gavin:** how about more applicable ones. sugar. pumpkin. muffin?

 **Gavin:** you’re not responding so I assume it’s an ok on all of these.

 **Connor:** No, times seven.

 **Gavin:** ok. How about… My Plum.

 **Connor:** Your plum?

 **Gavin:** I’ve gotten sidetracked with foods.

 **Gavin:** hey. Speaking of that. ur quite intelligent. what do bees make again?

 **Connor:** Honey.

 **Gavin:** yes dear?

 **Connor:** Ah. I should’ve known.

 **Gavin:** >:)

 

 

_August 21 st_

“I know it’s late,” Gavin says, reaching into his pocket, pulls out a folded piece of red paper and passes it across the table to Connor. “But I should’ve given it to you on your birthday.”

“Yeah?” Connor asks, unfolding the paper carefully. It has strange creases, not quite a neat half but instead the folds are diagonal and imperfect. He realizes what it is before he has it all the way undone and he’s smiling, big and bright and _happy_. An uncontained joy.

A heart. Cut out of construction paper like a child’s art project.

It’s the best thing he has ever seen in his entire life.

“I love—” he stops himself and breathes in a sharp breath and looks up at Gavin. “I love it.”

“It’s _my_ heart,” Gavin says, tilting his head to the side. “Technically that means you love _me_.”

“Technically,” Connor replies, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I’m going to frame it.”

“What?”

“It’s too—it’s too valuable to put on a fridge,” he says, with a small laugh. “I’m going to go home immediately and put it in a frame. I have a spare one.”

“Who the fuck has a spare picture frame laying around?”

“Me. I just said that.”

Gavin laughs but he’s trying not to and his face falls a little, “Does this mean you’re not coming over tonight then? You’ll be too busy framing that?”

“Yes, but I suppose you could come over to my place.”

He looks utterly dumbfounded, “What? _Me_? _Your_ _place_? Unheard of.”

“Do you want to come over or not?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”

 

 

Connor’s place is clean and open and bright. When he flicks the light switch on, it illuminates the space in a bright light, different to the soft dim glow of his own. The place is spotless, with things neatly organized or laid out like they’re meant to appear as though someone lives here but doesn’t actually.

It reminds him of a hotel room, almost.

Not as if it has a lack of personality—there are bookshelves lined with tattered spines, small plants on the windowsill, and picture frames on the walls. He steps over to one of them, inspecting the two people in the picture.

Connor.

And not-Connor.

“Your brother?” he asks as if there is any other possible answer, looking over his shoulder at Connor as he pulls his spare frame from the closet.

“Niles.”

“Right,” he says, taking a step back. They’re dressed differently. Not in ways that Gavin would expect Connor’s twin to dress. He just assumed they would be identical. That Niles would wear the same loose t-shirts and sweatshirts that Connor does. Instead, he’s dressed sleek with sharp lines, like he’s ready to go to a formal event. “He looks a little bit like a jerk.”

Connor laughs and Gavin walks over to him in the kitchen as he shakes his head, undoes the back of the frame and places the construction paper heart carefully between the glass and the backing.

“I think you would like him.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe not. He’s… prim and proper.”

“Prim and proper?”

“Not at all your type.”

He reaches forward and pulls Connor’s hands away from the frame, uses his grip to pull Connor against him. He wants to kiss him. Some kind of thank you for the gentle way he’s treating something Gavin made at three in the morning when he was bored and watching a horror movie from the seventies.

“What is my type?”

“Bakers.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, of course,” Connor says with a nod, a quick kiss against his nose that makes Gavin wiggle it like he’s about to sneeze. “I’ve used Hank’s old connections at the DPD to look up every single fling and boyfriend you’ve ever had and they’re all bakers. And we had a twelve-hour discussion about whether or not you’re using me to get to my stash of secret recipes, because we found the blue prints you had for the secret bakery you’re planning on opening.”

“Really?”

“Yes. _Somu’s_ , I believe? You’re not very good at hiding it.”

“That was the old me,” Gavin whispers, leaning up to kiss him, stopping half-way. “I didn’t think I’d fall in love with you for real.”

“I bet you say that to all of us.”

He laughs and pulls Connor down further, kissing him hard and deep and filling a prick in his chest, that tiny thing saying again to tell Connor he loves him but there are so many perfect moments like this, so many happy ones that could either be heightened a thousand-fold or absolutely destroyed based on what Connor would reply.

Not that he needs Connor to say _I love you_ at the same exact time, but he knows the weird weight it would carry if he would say it and Connor didn’t feel it, too. So, he nudges it along again. _Next time, next time, next time._

 

 

“You can stay the night, if you want to,” Connor says.

“Do I get to wear your pajamas? It’s only fair, since you keep stealing mine.”

Connor disappears out of the room, returns with an old Sumo’s hoodie design with the logo missing the dog face, the words written out in a font like it’s a heavy metal band and not a café. He mostly just wants to see Gavin in it, for a lot of reasons. To see if he’ll wear the same ridiculous smile that Gavin did when Connor wore his clothes. If there will be a little flutter in his stomach. If he’ll like the knowledge of wearing that sweatshirt three days from now when it’s clean from the wash and knowing that Gavin wore it for a few hours one night. If it will smell like him, even from the brief time he’ll have it on.

He can see that Gavin wants to say something, like he’s eying the clothes skeptically but he leaves anyways, returns back with the hoodie on, with the faded black pants that were in the pile at the bottom. The sweatshirt hangs down almost to his knees, the sleeves too long. He tilts his head sideways with a small smile.

“Was this Hank’s at one point? Because I don’t—”

“I bought it big to sleep in. And it was the only size available. It wasn’t Hank’s.”

“Ah,” he says, pulling the sleeves so he can use his hands to lift the hood up over his head where it hides the majority of his face. “Then I can get very comfortable in this.”

“Yeah?”

“It smells like strawberries. Why does everything you own smell like strawberries?”

“I bake a lot of things with strawberries in them.”

“It’s not a perfume?”

“No.”

“I like it.”

“But you hate strawberries.”

Gavin pulls the hood down again taking a step towards Connor, “I could grow to love them. Feed them to me naked on a balcony during a rainstorm. That sounds romantic enough that I could eat only strawberries for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t have a balcony.”

He shrugs, “Terrible news. I’ll have to find a new location or take you to some extravagant hotel.”

“And control the weather so that there’s a rainstorm.”

“You’re right. Superhuman abilities and money are both necessary.”

“You better get to work.”

 

 

It takes more effort than Connor thinks to get Gavin to sleep on his bed, and in the end it’s him laying there alone, like he always does, while Gavin is in the living room on his couch, like he always is. He stares up at the ceiling, turning on his side, stretching his arm across the very empty, very large space beside him. He wants Gavin to fill it. He always thought that the first night Gavin was at his place, they’d be lying beside each other.

And, in all honesty, he hadn’t expected it to last this long, either. Every time he stays at Gavin’s place he expects that it will be the night Gavin will finally decide to share the bed with him. Like they have to be forced to do it.

He throws his blanket back and sits up, curling his legs up to his chest to keep himself from walking to the living room and physically pulling Gavin to the bed. This wouldn’t have happened if Connor was on the couch. He wouldn’t be aware of the lack of a body next to his.

 _GavinGavinGavin._ It runs through his head in annoying circle and he stands before he can stop himself, walking over to the door quickly but it opens before he can reach the door knob and he stumbles back.

“Gavin.”

“I—I wanted a pillow,” he says, leaning against the door frame. “Where were you going?”

_Bathroom. Water. Walk around the block._

He could come up with a hundred lies right now.

He settles on the truth.

“You,” he says. “I—I wanted you.”

“Oh?”

Connor grasps his wrist, the fabric of the sweatshirt, and pulls him forward into the room. He tugs Gavin along to the bed, lets go of him slowly as he sits back down. Gavin stands, cautious, head turned at him like he’s about to question him. _Are you sure? Are you certain? Are you positive?_

He wants Gavin here. He doesn’t want it to be anything other than sleeping together in a _literal_ sense. He isn’t ready for anything else. He wishes he was. He always wishes he was.

“Connor—”

“Stay,” he whispers. “It’s—I just—I don’t want to be alone.”

Gavin nods slowly and climbs into the other side of the bed. Connor lays down, facing him in the dark. It feels weirder than he thought. The last time they shared a bed, Gavin had cried himself to sleep. They’d laid down because Connor thought it was better than standing there and because he knew the type of crying that Gavin was doing and it wasn’t the type to stop, it was the type that needed to run its course until the body was too exhausted to carry it on.

Then, sleeping in the same bed just _happened._ Like it wasn’t in their willpower to stop it.

Here, Connor is making it happen. It’s strange. And bizarre. And not _wrong_ feeling but not _right_ either.

They’re too far apart.

Connor moves closer, awkwardly, and reaching back out to his arm but there hoodie is too big and it’s difficult because he wants to hold onto his hand and he wants to feel their fingers together and breathe in the scent that lies heavy in Gavin’s sheet but instead he finds that underlying scent of strawberries he hadn’t noticed before until it had been mentioned.

“Connor?”

 _I love you. I love you. I love you._ It’s on a loop in his head as he buries his face against his chest, as Gavin’s arm rests lightly around his shoulders. _I want you. I love you. I don’t know why this is so hard._

He feels a little lost, being held, feeling warm, having a sense of peace and contentment and also like he is still too stiff and rigid and not quite ready for something like this yet. But he is. Or at least, he wants this so much he can’t think of anything else.

He opts to say nothing, and Gavin doesn’t prompt him again. He closes his eyes, presses his ear against Gavin’s chest and listens to the quiet steady sound of his heart beating. He can feel his heart aligning perfectly with Gavin’s. They beat at the same time, a steady rhythm, like a song. He falls asleep to it, like a white noise machine.

 

 

_August 22 nd_

He wakes to the smell of food cooking and he climbs out of the bed slowly, walking out into the hall like he’s creeping up on someone. And he is. And he isn’t. When he spots Connor by the stove, he lets his footsteps make noise, reaches out gently to Connor’s arm so as not to make him jump. Connor turns, just slightly, to look at him.

“Good morning,” he says. Gavin wraps his arms around his waist, pressing a kiss against his shoulder. “You could’ve slept longer if you wanted.”

“Not the same without you.”

Connor sets the spatula down, turns so that he faces Gavin and lifts his chin up enough to kiss him. _Strawberries._ Always strawberries. It’s seven in the morning and his lips are already laced with the taste of them.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Connor says, pulling away. “After you eat we can go back in bed.”

“Really? You want a whole day of just cuddling?”

“I want a whole day with you. If that’s what you want to do, I’ll happily oblige.”

Gavin allows himself three kisses. Short, quick, nothing he can get distracted with, and then he’s on the other side of the counter, keeping his distance, watching Connor as he turns back to his work.

_A whole day._

He wonders when the next time _Sumo’s_ will be closed on a day other than Sunday. If it will align properly with whatever job he’ll get himself. If, somehow, in the end, they will start to have more than just _one whole day._

 

 

_August 24 th_

**Connor:** I have something for you.

 **Gavin:** yea???

 **Connor:** Can you come over tonight?

 **Gavin:** um. of course..

 **Gavin:** what is it?

 **Connor:** ♥

 **Gavin:** ah?? you're returning it to me?? Is this some kinda cutesy break up?!?

 **Connor:** No. It’s not yours. It’s mine.

 **Gavin:** ahhhhhh

 **Gavin:** I love it ♥

 **Gavin:** am i still invited over or was it just for the text

 **Connor:** Just for the text.

 **Connor:** Sorry, my plum.

 **Gavin:** it’s okay darling

 

 

_August 28 th_

“Gavin?”

 “Yeah?”

“Sleep in here?”

He’s half out the door, half on his way towards the couch again, which really is a comfortable couch. He’s never hated sleeping on it before. He bought something that would be comfortable for all the nights he falls asleep watching reruns or shitty movies. He’s never minded that Connor preferred the bed to himself.

Gavin almost likes the idea of thinking about Connor curled up in his sheets all by himself.

He likes the idea of Connor and him beside each other more.

So he comes back into the room and lays down beside him and lets Connor nestle against his chest and he wraps his arms around him. It is perfect and quiet and soft and he wants to leave kisses everywhere he can on Connor’s face because he can’t hold all the happiness within him anymore.

But he settles for two instead.

One on his forehead, another on his lips when Connor looks up at him.

“Good night.”

Connor leans up to press a kiss against his jaw before nuzzling his face against his neck, his shoulder. “Good night.”

 

 

_August 30 th_

**Connor:** ♥ ♥ ♥

 **Gavin:** what’s with the hearts?

 **Gavin:** not that I’m complaining

 **Connor:** It’s just how I feel.

 **Connor:** And I thought I should let you know.

 **Gavin:** ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wasn't caught up enough to post October for Gavin's b-day so have Connor's instead?? and also a lot of nighttime scenes. ALSO i realized I could put actual hearts in this lkjasdlkfjlkj
> 
> writing / editing music;  
> (i could not tell you what i listened to for the first half of this chapter, ya girl sucks at keeping track sometimes)  
> My Friends - Oh Wonder  
> Moonlight - Allman Brown


	6. September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was alive in a way I never had been before, in a world that no longer felt stale but instead crackled with breathless promise.”   
> An Enchantment of Ravens - Margaret Rogerson

_September 4 th_

“I don’t want to kill you from total shock,” Gavin says. “But I got a job.”

“You got a job?”

“Yes, I acquired employment.”

Connor smiles and leans back against the booth, “You never even told me you had an interview.”

“I didn’t want to get hopes up.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Both,” he sighs, but it comes out with a little bit of a laugh. “It’s, uh, at a motel. I’m a maid.”

“A maid?”

“Yes, I fucking hate cleaning but… I don’t know. It’s just…”

“The only thing available?”

“That’s not really it,” Gavin replies, shifting in his seat. His eyes are stuck on the table, where the remnants of spilled sugar from his coffee on the surface. “I just read about how cleaning can sometimes help the mental state, right? Like cleaning the exteriors up can help clean up the interiors. I don’t fuckin’ know. I’m not a psychologist or anything, but it makes sense, yeah? So, I’m giving it a shot. Maybe it’ll be worth it.”

He goes silent, neither of them saying anything. When Gavin moves, it’s only to clean up the grains of sugar, swiping them off the table with his hand and into a waiting napkin, which he folds up with more care than Connor would have anticipated otherwise.

“Gavin?” he says quietly, leaning forward like he’s going to tell him a secret or ask him to pinky-swear on something. “I’m really proud of you, you know that?”

“Proud?”

“Yeah.”

Connor is given a weird look, something straddling the line of confusion and seriousness and something almost sad.

_Solemn_ , maybe.

“I—” he stumbles over the words, trying to change the subject. “I can’t come over tonight, by the way. It’s Hank’s birthday on Monday. I’m going to be baking him a cake on Sunday and if I stay…”

“You’ll get distracted by my beauty?”

He says it in a way that is different from how they first met—when Gavin was doing his best to be suave and charming and using flirtation to the best of his abilities. He says it almost the same way now, but it is mixed with something else. Something Connor has seen in little exchanges between the two of them.

The way Gavin brushes off compliments. The way he returns them with _no you’re much cuter than me._ He doesn’t believe it.

But he is.

And Connor would absolutely get distracted by his face. At night, when Gavin’s guard is down, moments before Connor falls asleep, he sees something new in his feature. The little scars on his face, almost faded now with the years. The dark circles under his eyes that seem to be a permanent fixture, the stubble on his chin and a new tiny cut from shaving.

Maybe he is not beautiful by his own standards, but to Connor?

_Unquestionably_.

“Gavin, I—”

“What if I come over to your place?” he asks. “Stay the night there, help you bake Hank’s stupid cake in the morning?”

“You want to bake?”

“I just wanna spend time with you. If it means baking, yeah.”

“Okay,” Connor says, and he is smiling like and idiot. “Okay. That would be wonderful.”

“Wonderful,” Gavin repeats, holding back a laugh. “You’re…”

“Yeah?” he asks. “I’m what, Gavin?”

“Wonderful,” he says. “You’re wonderful.”

 

 

_September 5 th_

He wakes up after Connor, like he always does. He stretches his arm across the space anyways, feeling deflated at the emptiness of it. _Still warm._ The sheets still cling to Connor’s warmth like he was just there. It’s not as if they’ve shared a bed often—only a few times—but he still finds it strange to wake up here on his own, knowing that a few hours ago Connor was curled against his chest or vice versa.

Gavin sits up, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes in some vain effort to get rid of the exhaustion still clinging to him. The clock says it’s barely after seven in the morning. He should go back to sleep. He _could_ go back to sleep. He _would_ go back to sleep, if it weren’t for _Connor_. He hates how little time they spend together. It seems to be a recurrent fact he will never get over.

The air is cold, the wooden floorboards of Connor’s room cool to the touch, but he extricates himself from the mattress anyways and grabs the bag sitting in the corner of the room he’d brought just in case Connor invited him over.

He makes his way quickly to the bathroom, shedding his clothes and replacing them again, brushing his teeth and running his hand through his hair. There is always that one stupid fucking piece of hair that never quite does what he wants it to.

When he leaves and enters the kitchen, he is struck again by how Connor looks. In the morning, it’s different than their meetings at the diners. His hair is a little messed up, his clothes are little rumpled, but not yet stained by vanilla extract and smeared with flour.

“Hey.”

Connor looks up from the counter, his hands stilled in their movement of setting up the ingredients for whatever breakfast he plans on making today, “You’re awake.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?” he asks, his eyebrow raised. Like he’s skeptical of something. Like Gavin is playing a trick on him somehow that involves being awake before ten.

“Because I woke up?”

“No—” Connor cuts himself off, shaking his head with a smile. “Sorry. I just mean you seem like the type to like to sleep in. That’s all. And it’s early, but you never do—Wait, are you uncomfortable sleeping here? Do you not like my place, or—”

“Connor—”

“Is it me?” he asks, and he looks so serious with the question Gavin can’t even entertain the idea that this is some type of joke he’s playing. “I mean, you don’t sleep in at your own place either, but you slept in the couch, so maybe—I don’t know. Are you uncomfortable? With me?”

“God, no,” he says, stepping towards the kitchen. “No, not at all. _Never_. I just wanted to spend time with you. Talk to you. We don’t get to see each other very much, you think I’m gonna sleep until noon when you’re here?”

“I—” he breathes out a half-laugh, something tainted by an awkward edge. “I…”

He trails off as Gavin moves behind the counter to pull Connor towards him. A hand on his waist, another reaching up to his neck, always ready to bring him down for a kiss.

“I really like you, Connor,” he says, lowering his voice now that he’s so close to him, and he kisses him as if he needs to prove it. “I think I might love you.”

It feels dangerous, saying this again. He hasn’t said it since that night a few months ago, and he hasn’t quite entered the dangerous realm of leaving of the _I think_ and the _I might._

But he does. He completely and utterly and foolishly is in love with this boy.

“I want to spend as much time with you as I can, even if it’s just at a stupid diner. You don’t make me uncomfortable. You could never.”

“Okay.”

“Hey,” Gavin says, pressing another kiss against his lips. “You make me incredibly happy. I just want you to know that.”

Connor smiles, but it is different than the smiles that Gavin has seen before. It’s almost like he’s forcing it, but it reaches his eyes. It’s a strange pained expression, and it only exists for a moment before Connor is kissing him again, pushing him back against the counter. He hears something clatter onto the floor, something metal like a utensil.

But it is the furthest thing on his mind.

Because Connor is kissing him and they don’t kiss like _this_. Like they are trying to consume one another. They aren’t as careful or as cautious as they were in the beginning of their relationship, but it isn’t the soft or gentle kisses like they usually have.

He realizes, somewhere between Connor breaking the kiss and mumbling something, returning to his work, that the kiss was different because of what Gavin said.

That Connor made him happy.

That Connor had likely never heard that before.

 

 

“I’ve never seen Hank eat a single fucking carrot in his life.”

Connor laughs, but he pulls his phone from his pocket anyways and shows the text history between him and Hank from a few days ago. Connor’s speech bubble saying _what kind of cake would you like for your birthday?_ And Hank’s reply being, very clearly, _carrot cake._

“Yeah, you’ve got proof, but I still—”

“It’s the frosting,” Connor says, setting the phone down. “It balances out the healthiness. There’s four cups of powdered sugar in it.”

“Terrible. That’s awful.”

“What? You don’t like sugar?”

“I told you. I don’t like sweets,” Gavin says, turning back to the shelves to pull down the plastic containers of sugar and flour. “And sugar is bad for you.”

“Right.”

“S—”

“You know you put five packets of sugar in your coffee, Gavin?”

“E-Excuse me?” he asks, turning back to him. He looks surprised, like this is the first he’s ever heard of this fact. As if someone else is the one dumping those little paper packets into his mug every Saturday night. “I don’t—”

“I’m fairly certain I’ve seen you use syrup on your waffles, too, which can be quite sugary depending on—”

“It’s different. It’s not a cake. Or cookies. It’s not real sweets.”

Connor reaches forward and takes the container of sugar from his hand, he cradles it against his chest, worried it might slip from his grip and hit the floor. He’s dropped these too many times, seen the lids pop off and scatter across the tile, spent hours cleaning up powdered sugar to not be cautious about this, “I’ve seen ice cream in your freezer.”

“That’s n-not mine.”

“Holding onto it for a friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. If you say so.”

 

 

“This contraption scares the absolute fuck out of me, Connor, you’re gonna—”

“It’s just a food processor.”

“It’s got sharp blades.”

“It’s encased in plastic, Gav. You’re not going to hurt yourself on it.”

“It’s fuckin’ pulverizing those carrots like they’re _nothing_ —”

“Gavin—”

“Imagine what the fuck it’d do to your fingers—Stop laughing at me. _Connor._ Stop laughing at me—"

 

 

_September 6 th_

“What do you think?”

Hank looks up from the cake at Connor suspiciously, “You poison this?”

“No.”

“Then why are you asking…?”

“Gavin helped me make it.”

He sets the plate down like Connor has told him that he had swapped out one of the ingredients for bugs.

Connor sighs and tilts his head, resists the urge to cross his arms, “I get that you don’t like him, but I supervised the entire process. And I don’t think he’d try to kill you anyways.”

“Yeah? And _he_ didn’t try to poison me? You’re sure?”

“He at one point thought vanilla extract was ice cream, but—"

“Are you happy? With him?”

He pauses, his newly prepared speech on why Gavin doesn’t really hate Hank dying on his lips.

_Are you happy?_

He thinks of all the times they have spent together. Good _and_ bad. The times he cried at night because they separated, or when he saw the recent injuries on his knuckles at the end of July, or even a few nights ago when he felt himself on the precipice of a break down because he’s terrified of the fact he might never be able to be intimate with Gavin and that it might break them apart because he wouldn’t hate Gavin or even hold it against him if he decided sex was an important part of a relationship and he was tired of waiting for Connor to let it happen.

But he also thinks of the walks to the diner. The talks they share, the way Gavin’s hand feels in his. The nights at his house. The night watching the stars and the one after with the fireworks. Or even just yesterday, when he had to spend three minutes convincing Gavin it was part of the recipe to leave the eggs out on the counter for thirty minutes and that they’d be perfectly fine.

Connor thinks of the feeling in his chest now when he’s thinking about Gavin. The lightness of it, the way it feels like something he has a difficult time describing and even harder time understanding. The way it feels like the scent of coffee and taste of strawberries and sounds like Gavin’s laugh and looks like Gavin’s smile. The way it seems to be too big for his body to handle, like at any second he might entirely combust.

When he thinks of Eddie now, it seems to shrink him down. Harden him into a rotten apple core. Even when they were together, that’s how he felt. The good times were few and far between, and they never felt like _this._

This is such a conflicting opposite that he knows the answer within a heartbeat of the question, but he lingers like he doesn’t know if Hank will accept his _yes_ as real.

But it is.

“I have never been happier in my entire life,” he whispers, and it’s true. He can feel tears pricking in his eyes, because even when it was just him and his brother, the two of them were dealing with parents that barely cared about their presence. And after their parents died, he dealt with the strange grief of constantly forgetting that they were even dead to begin with because of how absent they were before. And after, when his brother moved away, all he could deal with was the loss of his only friend.

Which is what led him to Eddie in the first place.

He has been happy during his life before Gavin— _absolutely_ he has been happy. He has laughed with Niles about a thousand different things until his stomach hurt and his lungs ached with the need to breathe. He has gone out to movies and restaurants with Chloe and fallen asleep smiling about what an amazing friend he has. He has lived through weeks without thinking about how terrible some aspects of his life are, but they always came back in the end.

No, Gavin has not fixed every problem in his life. He has brought Connor’s attention to different ones he didn’t think he’d have to deal with for years.

But it doesn’t change the fact he is incredibly happy now, and he hasn’t felt such joy since he was a child and couldn’t recognize it for what it was.

“You love him?”

“Yes,” he says, and doesn’t bother trying to find words to make Hank believe him this time. His answer is too quick for him to second guess it. “Hank, I don’t know exactly who he was before, but I do love him. And he makes me happy. And I wish—”

He bites his tongue.

_I wish you could accept that._

“He seemed okay at your birthday party,” Hank says, the words coming out like he has to force them. “And he’s not…?”

“No.”

“Okay then.”

“Please eat your cake,” Connor says, forcing a weak smile onto his face. “I’d like to tell Gavin that you liked it. He was very proud of his work.”

“Was he now?”

“I’ve never seen him more pleased. And he did tell me to wish you happy birthday on his behalf.”

“I don’t believe a fucking word of that last part, but I’ll let it slide.”

 

 

_September 9 th_

Gavin doesn’t make the decision on his own. It’s like his body is on autopilot. It misses the street he’s supposed to turn left on, passes the one that if turned onto would take him a slightly longer way home. He misses the third and the fourth and turns right on the fifth.

He stops.

He gets off his bike.

He heads towards the door.

It’s raining and this is stupid because he’s tired and he’s sure Connor’s tired too, and the rain is freezing him down to the bone and he just wants to go home and sleep but _Sumo’s_ is closed and there’s a faint light spilling out of the kitchen door and he’s here already and it reminds him so much of the first time he saw him so—

He knocks. As loud as he can.

It takes a minute, but the door opens and Connor is wiping his hands against his apron, stepping over to the door. It’s too dark to see his face in clear detail—he can’t make out whatever expression is sitting on his features right now, but he can hear his voice loud and clear through the door.

“We’re closed,” he says, pointing towards the sign.

Gavin smiles, lets out a little laugh. He almost wishes that Connor had forgotten to turn it around again. That he could remember his exact words from before, “Come on. I just want one cup of coffee. I’m getting fucking drenched out here, can’t you let me in?”

“There’s a Starbucks down the street and a McDonald’s right after that,” he replies. _Fucking impeccable memory._ Every word he says Gavin knows is right, and his are slipping away from him. “We aren’t the only place that sells coffee.”

“You sell the best. And I’ll pay you double. Triple the tip.”

“Another quarter?” he can hear the smile in his voice, so clear and easy, carried with the slight laugh. “And it doesn’t work that way.”

“Listen,” Gavin says with as real of a sigh he can manage. “I’m friends with the baker. He’d let me in.”

“Would he?”

“Yeah, you can go ask him.”

“He’s not here.”

“You sure?”

“Maybe not,” Connor says. “What does he look like? Maybe I missed him somehow.”

“He’s fucking adorable,” he replies. “Especially when he wears an apron and has flour on his forehead.”

Connor lifts an arm up, swipes across his face and Gavin smirks. He can’t see through the glass very easily, but it’s amusing either way.

And it’s not like it’s a lie. He’s seen Connor with flour smudged on his face more often than not. It’s part of his look.

“Anything else?”

“He looks great in the moonlight.”

“Yeah?”

“Connor,” Gavin says, leaning closer to the door. “Can you let me in?”

“You aren’t entertained by this anymore?”

No. Yes. He isn’t sure. He just doesn’t see Connor often enough. He just wants to hold him. It feels like the little time they’re spent together is so often divided by the table at the diner or the walls between the bedroom and living room that actively keeping the two apart because of a joke seems silly.

He wants to kiss him. He wants to hold him. He wants to _tell_ him—

“Con?”

“Okay,” he says. “I’m opening this, even though you might be a murderer, so I’m putting a lot of faith in you right now.”

Gavin watches his hands move to the lock, the quiet sound of it clicking muffled by the rain, the thunder starting up behind him. The door swings open and he reaches forward, grabbing Connor’s wrist and pulling him out into the rain with him.

“You’re ridiculous,” Gavin says, pulling him down into a kiss. “And an absolute dork. And you dedicate yourself to your work too much. And you’re kind and really fucking beautiful and—”

“Gavin?”

“I love you, is what I’m saying,” he says. “And I waited too fucking long to say it.”

In the dim light of the street, Connor smiles, “You love me?”

“Is that surprising?”

“Did you come all the way here just to tell me?” he asks. “And I let you sit out in the rain?”

“I’m getting my revenge now, right?” he asks, his hand curling into the fabric of his shirt, growing more and more wet with each second. It’s storming too heavily right now for either of them to hope to be dry.

“Hey,” Connor says, leaning down to kiss him again. “You’re ridiculous too, you know?”

“Yeah—”

“And I love you, too.”

“You do?”

“Is that surprising?”

He laughs a little, doesn’t want to say that _yes, it certainly is._ He has been good at quarantining the bad parts of himself away from Connor, but he is terrified that they find their way through and taint whatever version of Gavin that Connor knows. He might have told him about the fights, he might know vaguely about him being a bad person, but Connor has never seen it with his own eyes. He doesn’t want the day to come where Connor will see that part of him, not fully.

So, he will do his best to get rid of it. Scrub it clean. Start new and fresh, become a better person.

One actually worthy of Connor’s love.

 

 

_September 11 th_

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.”

“No reason?”

“I just…” he laughs, retreats from the table and into the plush cushions of the booth’s seat, like he needs to fold in on himself. “I just really love you. And I’ve—”

He stops himself, turns his attention from Connor’s face to the table. It’s difficult, sometimes, for him to get the right words out when Connor looks like _that._ Genuinely interested in what he has to say, actually wanting to talk to him, to hear his voice.

Gavin still gets this little burst of happiness when he remembers that Connor likes his voice. It changed everything. One tiny little fact that just pushed him over the edge and straight into his arms.

It hasn’t even been a year.

He has to keep reminding himself of that.

That it’s silly to be this in love with someone he hasn’t even known for a _year_. Like the reminder of it will somehow tell him to take it slower. To let it happen. To appreciate it more. As if he isn’t _appreciating_ it now, when he knows he is.

“It’s weird that I told you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Connor replies, and Gavin has to repeat to himself to keep his eyes on the table or he’ll see the face Connor makes when he’s confused. The furrowed brow, the way he starts to bite on his bottom lip.

“If I hadn’t told you, I’d be able to carry on an actual conversation,” he says. There are new scratches in the table towards the left. Ones neither of them caused. “I mean, it’s all I think about now. It’s all I want to say.”

He feels like a broken record. _I love you I love you I love you._ The words are being repeated so much in his head they’re cramming themselves together into one word that no longer makes sense and now only resides as a feeling in his chest.

He’s never fallen in love before. He’s had boyfriends. He said the words because it felt strange to be told them and not say them right back. But he’s never been _in love_ with someone. He likes the way it makes him feel—happy and grateful and like everything is falling into place the way it should—but he also hates it.

He doesn’t know what to do with it. The words and the feeling just _exist_ within him.

He realizes neither of them have said anything for a while and he risks a glance upwards at Connor, who is smiling softly, leaning his face on one hand, just _looking_ at him.

“What?” _Why are you looking at me like that?_

“I just really love you.”

Gavin laughs, soft and slightly uneven. He can’t handle this. It’s too much for him. He wants to say something, to convey this feeling in his chest but all he is left with is what the problem was to begin with.

The urge to say _I love you_ battles and wins every time against anything else.

 

 

_September 12 th_

Gavin wakes up early thank he expects. It is a terrible side effect of his job—waking up early. He has grown used to getting up at six in the morning, prepared to head off to the motel in the cheap black polyester uniform given to him. But this morning is earlier than most mornings. The sun looks like it hasn’t even decided to rise yet, but he is wide awake and the space beside him is empty.

He leaves the bed, looking back at it with a small sigh. He already is getting the urge to make every bed he sees, to pick up every little piece of trash, to clean the place so that it can “reflect his insides” or whatever the fuck he was taught. It’s working, he supposes. At least in the sense that he likes orderly spaces, now. His thoughts and feelings are still in about fifty-thousand places.

He finds Connor in the living room, curled up on the window seat. He has a blanket pulled around his shoulders, his head leaned against the glass, a book resting on his lap. All of the lights are off except the lamp beside him, set on the dimmest level possible, casting a soft orange glow across the room.

For a moment, he almost opens his mouth and says something _hello, hey, good morning, what are you doing out here?_ but they die on his lips because there’s this feeling inside of him telling him to keep quiet. To let this be a peaceful morning. He pads over to the window slowly and Connor looks from the outside up at him. Gavin leans down, presses a kiss against his forehead. Connor takes his hand, moving his book aside and adjusting his spot so Gavin can set next to him.

He doesn’t like that he’s shorter than Connor. It is frustrating always having to reach up, to pull down, to sometimes stand on his tiptoes. But right now, when he can lean against Connor’s shoulder, when he can be pulled into his lap or at night when they lay beside each other and Connor wraps his arms around him—

He is okay with it then. It’s warm and comfortable and tranquil. It is perfect.

 

 

_September 15 th_

**Gavin:** hows my fav baker boy doing?

**Connor:** Shouldn’t you be working?

**Connor:** And your text implies there’s more than one baker boy in your life, and I’m a little hurt by that, but I’ll let it slide since I’m your “favorite.”

**Gavin:** i am working. but no one can tell that i'm not actually vacuuming rn if the blinds are closed.

**Connor:** Being at work and actually doing the work is different. You’re not working. You’re just physically present.

**Gavin:** i am! the vacuum is getting that one spot in the corner really good!

**Gavin:** nd you didn’t answer my question.

**Connor:** I’m doing good.

**Connor:** I miss you, though.

**Gavin:** i miss you too.

**Gavin:** do you want to run away together?

**Gavin:** go live in th woods were we don’t need jobs or have to follow their rules?

**Connor:** That sounds perfect.

**Connor:** Are you going to build the house we live in?

**Gavin:** if yr into that ;)

_September 18 th_

“When’s your birthday, Gavin?” Connor asks.

“Excuse me?”

“You know mine,” he turns his half-empty milkshake in a slow circle. “I feel I should know yours. So I can prepare for it.”

“Prepare?”

“Throw you a surprise party.”

“It’s not a surprise if you tell me.”

“Gavin,” he says, in the tone that he usually adopts when he means _I love you, but stop messing around._ “What if I wanted to get you a present? What if I missed it?”

“You didn’t even tell me it was your birthday until the day before,” he replies, reaching out to stop the movement of the glass, his fingers threading through Connor’s. They’re cold, frozen from the temperature of the ice cream. “And I don’t need a present. I didn’t get you one.”

“You went to my party and didn’t get into a fight with Hank. I think that’s a good present.”

“You’re funny.”

“What about the heart?”

“The one you framed?”

“That was a birthday present. And you kissed me, and that was—”

“I don’t need a present, alright?”

“Okay,” Connor says, and he smiles and leans back, but doesn’t let go of Gavin’s hand. His arm is stretched out in front of him, his fingers squeezing Gavin’s a little tighter. It makes his heart feel full and warm and he can’t believe his luck right now. “I won’t throw you a party. I won’t get you a present. But you have to tell me your birthday. Right now. Or, I’ll make Hank look it up and have him tell me.”

“You really pulling the Hank card?”

He shrugs and it makes Gavin laugh. He looks so nonchalant. So content with himself. With the two of them. They are delirious with one another.

“It’s the seventh.”

“Of?”

“October.”

“That’s next month. That’s not even three weeks away.”

“Guess not.”

 

 

_September 22 nd_

“Hey,” he says, sliding up to the counter opposite of Chloe. “Is Hank here?”

She doesn’t reply. Her eyes are stuck to her phone, her fingers moving slowly across the keyboard like she’s overthinking whatever it is she’s typing. But she’s smiling, stupidly pleased.

“Chlo?”

Her screen goes black and she sets her phone face down on the counter, looking up at him with the smile still on her face. _North._ The two of them are so ridiculously happy together. It’s almost sickening.

Is that what it’s like for her, to see him and Gavin together?

“Hank?” she asks. “He left. He said something about a date. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. I don’t know how long he’ll be.”

“Must be nice,” he says quietly, looking towards Hank’s empty office. He is well aware that the café doesn’t run by normal standards. Him and Chloe are the only employees here. Hank takes over her job when she leaves for the evening, but otherwise their work balance is off. Hank is constantly leaving the café for official (or, sometimes unofficial) business. But Connor is always here. _Always._

“Hey,” she says. “Everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” he says. “I just needed to ask him something.”

“Yeah?”

“He said when I first started working here that if the baking was too much to handle on my own, he’d hire another person to help.”

She nods, only looking away to offer a smile to a customer leaving. The bell jingles above the door behind him, and he can feel the urge to turn and walk away. Like he doesn’t want to talk about this right now. It’s somehow weird, dealing with all this. He hasn’t talked about wanting more time away from work with anyone, and he doesn’t know what to do with all of it if it _was_ given to him

 He isn’t going to spend every second with Gavin, and it would offer him the time to go out with Chloe and the others to movies or restaurants like he used to, but the rest of it seems like a waste. Like he would just sit on his couch and do nothing.

It makes some part of him is bite at his insides, telling him he’s selfish for all this. That it isn’t fair. Like he doesn’t deserve it.

“Maybe not, though,” he says, feeling his voice start to crumble. “It’s not really a big deal.”

“It is.”

“It’s—”

“Connor, you work nearly sixteen hours a day,” she says. “You only get Sunday off, and even then? I know you. You get up at five in the morning anyways. You still bake. You need the time off.”

“Half of baking is just sitting around doing nothing—”

“It’s still sixteen hours here. Ask him for the time off. Get a normal work schedule. He’s not going to be angry at you, and you deserve it. He might’ve made all the recipes, but you’re the only reason this place is running. You think people come here for the coffee?”

“Gavin does—”

“Gavin is an outlier,” she smiles and shakes her head a little bit, “Ask him to hire someone else or I will.”

“You’re forcing me to do this now?”

“Absolutely. You can’t be trusted.”

 

 

He tells himself he doesn’t have the patience for Hank to show up, or that he would even notice when he comes back at all, but he knows in reality it’s that he’s scared of being told no. He steals a page from a notebook in his bag and writes out the letter. Quick and concise and formulating everything he needs to say down so he doesn’t have to worry about his voice shaking when he sees Hank and has to start all of this up again. He is too aware of the slight tremble in his hands, tells himself it’s nothing. Him and Hank have known each other for a while now, but he still has nerves when it comes to asking him for things he feels like he doesn’t deserve.

He probably should have let Chloe do it. She’s always too far off in space to second guess herself. Like she exists in another realm and only comes back occasionally to grace them with her presence. She’s a strange being, a weird creature. Neither here nor there. A dreamer.

Connor pushes his office door open, leaves the letter on his desk, disappears again. He feels a tiny sliver of hope beating its wings in his chest that Hank won’t notice it today. Somehow, he’ll skip over it and he can deal with this tomorrow instead of tonight. Give his nerves a few hours rest.

When he returns to the kitchen, he sets the ingredients aside for strawberry cookies, finds the different food dyes to turn the pink dough to dark brown. He feels like a drug dealer covering up his cocaine like it’s sugar instead. He can’t let Hank know he’s breaking the rules, and Chloe will have his back. Dish out the strawberry cookies like contraband.

 

 

_September 23 rd_

“Connor.”

“Hm?” he looks up, not aware that he was so intently focused on the edges of the cookbook in front of him. He didn’t get much sleep last night, spent too much of it reading Gavin’s texts. Hank is looking at him like he’s said Connor’s name twenty times before getting his attention, and he can feel his cheeks burn with the desire to rewind time and snap himself out of tiredness that has taken over him.

“Sugar cookies next month. We have new shapes. Bats and ghosts and whatever the fuck. You alright with that?”

He sighs, but nods anyways. October isn’t his favorite time of the year. Sugar cookies are fine and fun for the first week, but after that it is a tedious task of cutting out pumpkins and trying to decorate them. They’re cute, and they taste good, which means they go fast. He’ll be baking them and decorating them nearly the entire day, leaving little time for everything else.

It also means he will likely be coming in on Sundays to get a head start on the week.

He should have probably already started making the dough and freezing it ahead of time, but his thoughts have been elsewhere. His time in between baking hasn’t been utilized for the best approach to Halloween season, it’s been spent sending pictures and heart emojis to Gavin.

They are both terrible influences upon each other.

But just thinking of the last picture Gavin sent him makes him smile. It was just of a dog in the parking lot, the picture taken with the blinds turned just barely open so Gavin wouldn’t get caught. Too blurry to make out much than the fact it was a brown dog, but enough to make him smile for so long his face hurt. Gavin saw a dog in a parking lot and the first thing he thought of was Connor should see it, too.

“Hey, are you fuckin’ listening?”

“No,” Chloe says before Connor can try and lie his way out of it. “He isn’t.”

“Great,” Hank says, sighing. “We’re officially hiring for the position of another baker, alright? There’s an ad in the newspaper and everything. I hope this means you’ll start paying attention to these little meetings. I hate them just as much as you, but they’re necessary.”

Connor smiles, wishes he was sitting on something other than this stool so he could curl up and try and contain his giddiness, “Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah whatever. This place should’ve been shut down ages ago with your work schedule.”

It probably should have.

But he’s happy it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ah... a chapter without much angst. i don't know what's happening to me.
> 
> writing/editing music;  
> Chateau - Angus & Julia Stone (acoustic)  
> White Blood - Oh Wonder  
> Hiding Place - Elenowen


	7. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy. But on Halloween you get to become anything that you want to be."  
> Love Letters to the Dead - Ava Dellaira

October 1st

**Connor:** Do you want to come over tonight?

**Gavin:** tonight? its friday??

**Gavin:** also yes.

**Connor:** Sumo’s is closing a few hours early.

**Connor:** And I’m working late.

**Gavin:** oh?? “working late”?? that’s why yr inviting me? because yr “working late”?

**Connor:** I will rescind my offer.

**Gavin:** hm ok.. sorry. sorry.

**Gavin:** i’ll b there.

 

 

“You’re actually working.”

“You sound surprised,” Connor says, turning away from the door to retreat back into the kitchen. “I told you I was. You think I lied just to get you here?”

“No,” Gavin replies with a short laugh. “No, not at all.”

Maybe he was picturing it too much like high school. The boy inviting him over when the parents are out and he could come racing over and have the house to just the two of them for a few hours without worrying about being walked in on.

Except they aren’t teenagers, and this is a place of business not Connor’s house.

Gavin feels a little stupid.

“Why did you invite me over then? I do such a good job with Hank’s cake you wanted me to help out at the bakery?”

Connor glances back at him with a smile before pushing the door open to the kitchen, “You did great, but no. I have to come into work on Sunday to prepare for next week and I thought if you helped out tonight, I wouldn’t have to come in so early.”

“Oh,” he says. “Really?”

“Yes,” Connor replies with a small laugh. “And, also, there’s this.”

Gavin glances to the countertop, the one that he doesn’t believe has ever really been clean but has only had glimpses of a few times when the door opens and closes, or that one time a few months ago when he barged in here just to kiss Connor and disappear again. But instead of glass bowls and scattered flour and sugar everywhere, it has been relatively emptied of bowls and batter and replaced with five plates, each with a small slice of cake sitting on them.

“What is this?”

“You said you don’t like sweets,” Connor says, reaching for the first one and handing it to him. “I don’t think that’s true.”

“Connor—”

“I didn’t make you a whole cake, alright? I just stole pieces from cake we’re already sold this week. I’m going to find out what your favorite is.”

“You could have asked.”

“And what would you have said?”

“I—Fuck if I know, but this?” he asks, raising the plate slightly. He doesn’t say it annoyed or angry but instead with a small smile, amused and happy. “Why?”

“I work next week on your birthday. I won’t be able to see you,” he says with a shrug. “And I work Sunday, too. Maybe not the entire day but more than I’d like. I don’t get a full day with you.”

Gavin takes a step forward, sets the plate down gingerly on the counter again and moves towards Connor quickly, pushing him back against the counter, pulling him down to kiss him. _A whole day._ Connor really does love him, doesn’t he?

This fact still amazes him.

 

 

“Do you want to come over?” Connor asks, leaning his head against the door frame and watching Gavin where he stands on the other side of the room, replacing the plain napkins in the dispensers with ones that are patterned with mummies and zombies and vampires. The place isn’t entirely decorated for the month yet, but Gavin has helped push it along.

“To your place?” Gavin asks, stepping backwards. “Don’t you have work tomorrow?”

“I can wake up early and leave.”

“And what about me?”

“What about you?”

Gavin sighs and turns around, leaning against the edge of the booth, “I’d be at your place for a little while. Alone. You’re okay with that?”

“Yes. Of course, I am.”

“Okay,” he replies, and he tries to hide his smile by twisting his mouth and looking away, but he fails at it. The action makes Connor smile in a lovesick teenager way.

Maybe Connor will have too much time to know what to do with himself after Hank hires another baker. Maybe he won’t mind wasting it all away with Gavin.

 

 

_October 2 nd_

The sun has barely started to rise when he wakes up. It’s not even six in the morning, but Connor is pulling away from him and Gavin reaches out automatically to him and tugging him back to the bed again.

“Gavin—”

“Five more minutes.”

Connor doesn’t move. His hand is still holding onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt, holding him in place. Gavin cracks his eyes open, looks up at where he sits, half upright, half leaned against the bed.

“Five minutes,” Connor replies quietly, and he lays back down again beside him.

He doesn’t close his eyes this time. Instead, he keeps them open—watches Connor watching him. Connor should be getting ready, he should be leaving. Gavin is going to end up being the reason he’s late to work for the very first time, isn’t he?

He can’t seem to get himself to care about that right now.

Gavin’s hand moves down from where it is pressed against his shoulder, finds Connor’s hand at his side and twines their fingers together, brings them to his lips to place a kiss on the back of Connor’s hand like a prince courting a lover.

“You’re—” Connor starts, stops himself with a sigh.

“What?”

“There aren’t enough words,” he says slowly, pulling his hand free from Gavin’s and placing it against his neck. “Or maybe just not the right ones.”

“Really? How sweet.”

Connor smiles, and it only lasts a second before he is pulling Gavin towards him to kiss him. _Five minutes._ That’s all he’ll get this morning. He hates how much he is thinking about it passing, right now, even though he loves this moment. He can only think about the fact it’s going to end in five more minutes.

 

 

“What are your plans for Halloween?”

Connor presses his fork through the edge of his pancake before looking up at him, “Chloe has a movie night on the thirtieth. Hank has Halloween celebrations the week before in _Sumo’s,_ and there’s a festival I go to every year. And then there’s you.”

“Me?”

“Halloween falls on a Sunday. That means Chloe has me on Saturday night. We won’t be able to see each other. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Chloe suggested I invite you to the movies. Would you want to go? It’s horror, so—”

“Does she want me there?”

“She doesn’t hate you, Gavin. She just doesn’t know anything about you.”

“So, I should go?”

Connor smiles, carefully sets his fork down and leans backwards, “If I didn’t have this tradition with her, what would we be doing that night?”

“I don’t—”

“Gavin.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. I’d probably make you watch a horror movie.”

“So, it’s perfect.”

“Perf—okay. Where is it at?”

“My place. They’ll be leaving after.”

“And before?”

Connor smiles, but it fades a little after a moment, “Chloe goes to the festival with her girlfriend. I… would like to go. If I can leave work.”

“If?”

“Hank is going to hire another person to work at the café,” he says, shrugging. “I won’t have to work quite so late.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“He doesn’t have someone yet. He might not until after Halloween, so—” Connor sighs. “I didn’t want to get hopes up.”

“Yeah?” Gavin asks, tipping his head to the side. “Yours or mine?”

“Both.”

 

 

_October 3 rd_

Gavin invites himself to _Sumo’s_ for the evening. He continues to decorate the booths and the tables while Connor bakes. The kitchen doors open are left open, just so Connor can look over and watch Gavin. He’s standing on his tiptoes, reaching up as high as he can, slapping the glass angrily in an attempt to tape a banner into place, but he misses, and it falls, tumbling to the ground again.

He sets the bowl down, wipes his hands against the apron and walks out towards Gavin.

“Do you need help?” he asks, reaching forward before he gets an answer, taking the end of the banner from him and the piece of tape stuck to Gavin’s thumb.

“No—”

“You sure?” he asks, leaning upwards and smoothing the tape over the end of the banner. “It seemed like you were having trouble.”

“I was—” Gavin laughs a little. “Giving you a show, yeah? Thought you’d like some entertainment.”

“Oh?” he asks. “So you don’t want me to put the other side up?”

“Well,” he shrugs a little, finding it where it rests on the floor, passes it to Connor. “Since you’re here, I guess it’s fine.”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin your show—”

“It’s fine, really,” he says, shrugging and stepping backwards. “Go ahead. The show wasn’t that good, was it?”

Connor smiles, his gaze moving from Gavin’s eyes to his lips, to the way his hands reach out for the tape dispenser and tears off a new piece, handing it out to him. He thinks of the way those hands feel on his skin, when sometimes they slide up underneath his shirt and brush across his scars and his sensitive spots.

“I can think of a few improvements,” he says quietly, taking the tape from him. “But this is a public place, and there is a window.”

“O-oh. Okay. Alright,” his voice trails off to a whisper, and it’s the first time Connor has ever seen _Gavin_ look flustered, a blush rising to his cheeks. “Wow… duly noted.”

 

 

_October 6 th_

His alarm goes off, loud and annoying and high pitched. Connor reaches over blindly, hitting the snooze before sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes

It’s not like they need space. Connor works nearly all day at _Sumo’s_ which never bothered him until Gavin showed up in his life. He liked to be completely surrounded by baking. Sugar and flour and chocolate chips. He likes the scent of vanilla extract when he drops it in, the smell of peppermint or strawberry filling the room as cookies and muffins bake in the oven.

He’d offer Gavin for the role—he’d ask Hank to hire him in a heartbeat—but it wouldn’t do anything about them being around each other. A split second as their shifts trade off, a quick peck before the other is gone. They’d be in the same boat they’re in now, only Saturday nights and Sunday mornings to spend together.

Connor reaches for his phone, stares at the time for a second, blinks against the bright light before unlocking it.

He listens to the phone ring.

Once.

Twice.

Thr—

“Hello?”

“Did I wake you?” Connor asks, even though his voice is the one gravelly and lost in sleep.

“No,” Gavin replies. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. I just needed to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

Connor’s eyes move to the clock, watches the number switch—

 

 

_October 7th_

“Happy birthday.”

Gavin smiles, brings up his other hand like he needs to hide it even though he’s alone.

“You call me at midnight to tell me that?”

“I wanted to be the first.”

Connor would likely be the first even if he waited until the very last second of today, but Gavin can’t tell him that. He’s been good and vague about how lonely he is. He doesn’t want Connor to think his survival and happiness is dependent on him.

“Alright,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I would’ve woken you up if you were here.”

“I don’t doubt it. You know this makes me look bad, though? I didn’t say happy birthday to you at midnight.”

“That’s fine,” Connor says. “I was born closer to night time, around ten I think? You were the only one with me then.”

“I love you, you ridiculous…” he trails off, unable to find the right word. There is no good word to encompass Connor. It’s why he has the picture on his phone, to show people when they ask who his boyfriend is. _This adorable man. This angel. This perfectly imperfect human._

“I love you, too.”

“You should go back to sleep.”

“I will. Just keep talking. I’ll fall asleep to the sound of your voice.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. What are you doing?”

“Watching television.”

“Describe what’s happening.”

And so he does. Every detail he can manage. The way the actors look, their history, the scenery, the color of their dresses and shirts. He describes the relationships between them, the fragile bonds given to fictional characters. The way they can so easily break their promises. He goes on and on and he can’t seem to stop himself, even when he knows Connor is asleep.

 

 

He’s nearly asleep when there’s a knock at his door. He sits up straight, looking around the dark room, blinking in an effort to get his eyes to adjust to the dark shadows of the kitchen versus the bright light illuminating off of the television. Did he order a pizza and forget or something? Who the fuck is at his door?

Gavin stands, walking across the room slowly. He opens the door slowly, looking out skeptically at the noise.

“I woke you,” Connor says.

“No,” he says.

“Gavin.”

“Yeah, maybe,” he says with a small smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you on your actual birthday.”

“Oh?”

“Can you let me in?”

“I don’t know…” he says, trailing off. “You could be a serial killer.”

“Or I could be your boyfriend who has to catch a bus in two hours.”

“True, but how would I know? You have a twin. He could be evil.”

“Niles isn’t evil,” Connor says, tilting his head to the side. “And he has gray eyes.”

“You ever hear of colored contacts?”

“Alright,” he nods and takes a step back, casting his eyes to the floor. “I guess if I hurry I can catch the bus back to my place before it leaves since you don’t want me here—”

“Okay,” he says, pulling the door open the rest of the way. “I trust you. But if you are Niles in disguise, I’m going to be very disappointed.”

Connor smiles and walks forward, leaning down to kiss him against the forehead, “You won’t be. I brought you a present.”

“A present?”

He turns to the bag on his shoulder, pulling a package from inside of it and pressing it into his hands. “I know you said not to get anything, but I only happened to see it and it was on clearance, so it was basically free.”

Gavin looks between him and the gift in his hands. Soft and wrapped in metallic green paper that has small little sparkling patterns on it that dance from the light of the television behind him. He opens it carefully, thinking about all of the work Connor put into this. He didn’t understand Connor when he had unfolded that heart he had cut out, but now? Unwrapping this present? He does. He can’t imagine destroying something somebody he loves made.

He uncovers the inside, placing the wrapping paper on the counter in the kitchen, unfolding the fabric. It’s a deep green, darker and more washed out then the wrapping paper. Soft hues turned almost turquoise from the blue light behind him.

Gavin pulls it on over his head, tugging down the hem of the sweatshirt until it falls a little past his hips. Connor steps forward, reaching to lift the hood up over his head. He adjusts the top of it and smiles.

“What?”

“You look great.”

“Better than anticipated?”

“A little. Can I take your picture?”

“My picture?”

“I need a new phone background, mine’s outdated.”

“Phone—” he sighs. “What is it now?”

Connor retrieves the phone from his pocket, unlocks the screen and turns it to face Gavin. It’s a picture of him from _months_ ago. Sleeping on the couch the first night Connor stayed over. He remembers Connor texting it to him, he remembers smiling because of the words. _Sorry I couldn’t stay. You’re very cute._

“Only if I get one of you.”

“Okay, deal.”

He leans over, flipping the light switch on, leaning back against the wall. Connor snaps the picture of him and Gavin takes the phone from his hands to look at it.

He’s wearing a ridiculous smile, one that he doesn’t think he’s ever had before. Connor caught the stupid expression he makes when he see’s him, when he thinks of him. Gavin hadn’t realized what a complete idiot he looked like until now.

_Jesus._

“Are those fucking cat ears?” he asks, his attention suddenly drawn to the top of the hoodie. He brings his hand upwards, feeling along the top of the hood, finding the pointed ears.

“You said you like cats, and you look adorable.”

He drops his hand down, “Yeah?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“If I am, are you going to make it up to me?”

Connor smiles, steps forward, to tilt his chin upwards, “Depends on the price.”

“I can think of something,” he whispers, pulling Connor the rest of the way down. _Two hours._ Don’t waste it.

 

 

“Happy birthday, little brother.”

He shifts the phone to his other ear, as if that will silence the voice. He saw Elijah’s name on the caller ID, and he still answered, but it’s different actually hearing his voice. Something other than an accidental phone call. This is _purposeful_.

“I’m gonna go in the other room, okay?” he whispers to Connor. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Okay.”

He stands, moving from the couch to the bedroom, shutting the door behind him,

“Hello, Elijah,” he says, half wanting to call him _Eli,_ knowing how much he hates it. “What do you want?”

“Oh,” he says on the other side, feigning hurt. “This is how you greet your brother?”

“It’s how you greet me.”

“Right, I suppose I deserve it then,” he says, a small sigh. “I just called to say happy birthday. Return the favor and all that.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” he says. “Well, no.”

“No?”

“You got a boyfriend?”

Gavin lets out a deep breath, preparing himself for whatever Elijah plans to say next. “Yes. I told you before. Months ago, actually.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to believe it’s the same boy, can you? You run through them like—”

“Fuck off. I haven’t had that many. You just don’t bother to learn their names so you always think it’s someone new.”

“Maybe so,” Elijah says with a small laugh. “But, what do you expect? It’s not like you’re going to marry any of them. It’s not important to remember anyways.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What, so you love him?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you _sure_ you love him? Or do you just love that he loves _you?_ ”

“What the fuck do you want, Elijah?”

“Just checking in on you. Felicity says you haven’t called her in a while, she was worried you died or something.”

“She can call me herself if she’s that curious.”

“I don’t think she is. She doesn’t like talking to you. Surprise there, since you’re always such a pleasant conversationalist.”

“You started it.”

“You sound like a twelve-year-old. What happened to you wanting us to be good brothers?”

“I learned my lesson the last time I called and you told me to fuck off. So, do you want something or not?”

“Just to say happy birthday.”

“You’ve done it. Three times now. You can hang up now.”

“Right. Suppose I’ll see you at the wedding, then? If he doesn’t reject you?”

“You’re not invited. And neither is Felicity.”

“Of cou—”

Gavin pulls the phone away from his ear, clicks the _end call_ button. He’s tired of hearing Elijah’s voice. He’s tired of being reminded that he has a sister and a brother.

What happened to childhood trauma? What happened to them? They used to band together, an army against their father. They looked out for each other. Why did it all have to change? Why did the second their father die they all go their separate ways, pretend none of the rest of them exist?

He wasn’t even invited to his own sister’s fucking wedding.

 

 

Gavin stays in the room for an hour. Connor curls up into himself, pulls the blankets tight, falls asleep somewhere among the chatter of people on the screen. He wakes to Gavin laying down beside him, head rested on his lap, eyes shut tight.

He’s about to say something when he feels Gavin’s body shudder with a cry, and instead of speaking, he reaches out and weaves his hand through Gavin’s.

“I suppose only one of us can have a good relationship with our brother, right?” he says, his voice shaking. “And I guess it had to be you?”

Connor doesn’t want to say how broken his relationship with Niles is. How much he has lied and hidden from him, how little they have talked. He can’t, because then he has to explain to Gavin, too. Where the scars came from, why it was so difficult to want to be with someone that could actually love him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers instead. “I’m so sorry.”

“I love you,” Gavin replies, a mere whisper. “I love you so fucking much.”

Before he can reply, Gavin is sitting up, pressing a kiss against his forehead, meeting their lips, pulling away to kiss every where he possibly can, silencing every response Connor can come up with.

“I love _you,”_ he whispers against the side of his neck, letting Connor’s arms wrap around his waist, pull him tight. “I promise. I promise that it’s _real._ ”

“Gavin, what did he say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

They’ve been here. They both been here. A hundred times they have been here. _It doesn’t matter._ It does. It always does. It always reduces them to something like this, falling apart at the seams. One bad night, then in the morning they’re okay again.

They don’t lean on each other. They don’t _rely_ on each other.

But they do.

And is it so bad that they do? Is it so wrong that Connor feels like he needs Gavin, and that Gavin needs him? Is it so terrible that he makes him a little bit better when therapy and friends can’t fill that last remaining gap?

“I love you,” Gavin repeats again and again and again.

He doesn’t let Connor say it back.

 

 

_October 9 th_

“Do you have a costume for Halloween?”

“No, I’m not really the type to dress up.”

“You could go as a cat, you know. You have the hoodie now.”

“Yeah. Maybe. And you?”

“Vampire.”

“You? Baker extraordinaire? A vampire? You wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Maybe not. But maybe I would. You never know.”

 

 

_October 12 th_

**Connor:**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Connor:** Hank hired a new baker!

**Connor:** His name is Daniel!

**Connor:** He already knows everything, so I don’t have to train him for as long!

**Connor:** He starts next week!

**Gavin:**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

_October 16 th_

“Okay,” Connor says, setting a notebook down in front of him. “We have plans to make.”

“Plans?”

“I only work until two starting next Wednesday,” he says, leaning forward. “Which means we can go to the Halloween festival. It starts on the twenty-second, ends the thirty-first.”

“And you’re going to make me go?”

“Well, not if you don’t want to, but…”

Gavin smiles, “I’ve never gone. Or, haven’t since I was a teenager and snuck out.”

“So you’ll go?”

“Of course. I haven’t really seen you in the daylight outside before though so you might be a vampire for real and I wouldn’t really know,” he says, shrugging. “Guess we’ll have to find out.”

Connor leans on his hand and watches him, “If I _was_ a vampire, do you think I’d hurt you?”

“No.”

“Would you want me to?”

Gavin looks up from the table, “E-Excuse me?”

“Would you want me to bite you?”

He can feel his face going red, thinking about Connor’s teeth against his throat. He can’t figure out an answer. He can’t get his mouth to work. Gavin is saved by the waitress setting down their food in front of him, but his eyes have focused to Connor’s lips and they won’t move away.

 

 

_October 18 th_

“Connor,” Hank says, pushing the door open. Beside him a man follows, glancing around the room like he’s going to be quizzed on the precise placements of every single decoration and utensil in the kitchen. “This is Daniel.”

“Oh,” he says, and he holds his hands up helplessly like a man at gunpoint, dough sticking to his fingers. “Sorry, I’d shake your hand but—”

“That’s alright,” Daniel says.

Connor opens his mouth to reply, but he is interrupted by Hank. Instructions and rules coming quick out of his mouth. _Don’t leave the dishes over night. Make sure the closed sign is reversed. The recipe box is on that counter—_

He steals glances up from forming little balls of cookie dough. Daniel is expressionless through most of it, seemingly paying close attention to what Hank is saying, doing, pointing at, but also looking completely elsewhere, scanning the environment like he’s on edge.

When their eyes meet, Connor looks away quickly, feeling his face heat up. _Stupid._ There’s the beep of his phone from a text—likely from Gavin—and he works a little quicker, spacing out the cookies with slightly less care, like if he doesn’t finish this task quickly Daniel is going to think Connor is a terrible baker and worker and—

God.

He’s freaking out for no reason, but knowing that isn’t doing anything to stop his nerves. He’s never shared this kitchen with anyone but Hank, and other than the time he took cooking classes and baked with Gavin, he’s always been on his own in this.

“Connor will help you if you have any other questions,” Hank says. He waits a beat and then sighs, “ _Right,_ Connor?”

“Right,” he replies, looking back up. “Happy to be of service.”

 

 

_October 23 rd_

“Sorry,” Connor says, coming to a stop outside of the festival where Gavin stands. “I didn’t think I’d be late. Sumo’s is packed. Hank barely let me leave.”

“It’s fine, you’re here now.”

He smiles and reaches out, taking Gavin’s hand in a tight grip, “Shall we go in?”

Gavin squeezes his hand back in response, gives a little nod before leaning up and pressing a quick kiss against his lips. Something about it makes Connor realize where they are. He hadn’t thought about it before—how little time they spent together outside of one of their apartments or the diner, even the café—but they’re here now, at a Halloween festival.

He is tugged towards the entrance and his thoughts swarm him. _Why didn’t you ask Hank before? Why did you wait so long for this?_

To make sure. To be absolutely certain that this was _real_ , that it wasn’t _temporary_.

 

 

“It’s easy,” Connor says, turning right. “Just pick a direction and stick with it. Eventually it will lead you out. If you change it up, that’s when you’ll get lost.”

“Isn’t the whole point of a hay maze to get lost?”

“Not unless you want to—”

Gavin pulls Connor left at the next section, a small smile creeping up on his face, “Maybe I want to.”

“Gav—”

He pushes Connor back lightly against one of the walls, leaning up to kiss him. He tastes like the sweetness of the caramel and the tartness of the apples they had bought and consumed before coming this way. And underneath that the subdued flavor of strawberries.

_Always, always, always strawberries._

 

 

_October 24 th_

“Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Can I tell you something else?”

“What?”

“I _really_ fucking love you.”

 

_October 27 th_

He likes how short Gavin is. It is the perfect height for him to wrap his arms around Gavin’s waist, to rest his chin on his shoulder. He likes making excuses to do it, because even though they swap which one of them curls against each other’s chest at night, Gavin can’t do this. He’s an inch too short. Connor is an inch too tall.

So he finds his ways to make it happen. In the mornings, when Gavin wakes up with Connor as he gets ready for work. He goes towards the window where Gavin watches the sun rise half asleep with a cup of coffee in his hands, he winds his arms around his waist, holds him for a few minutes.

At night, when they walk down the streets, he stops on the bridge between them and the diner, holds Gavin close to him for what he wishes were hours. Here, at the festival, waiting in line for a haunted house, a tight grip around him even though when they enter, Connor will be the one that is scared and Gavin will be the one holding onto him.

This is what Connor wanted before. This is all he wanted before. Someone to love him, someone to lean back against his hugs, someone to kiss him and tell him that they love him and for it to actually sound _real_ and not like something they felt they needed to say to keep a relationship going.

 

 

_October 30 th_

The couch isn’t big enough for all of them, and Gavin can only think of this fact being a sign of how unnecessary his presence here tonight is. If he was gone, the three of them would probably be curled up on the couch together, but instead Chloe is sitting on the floor in front of North on a mountain of pillows and blankets and Connor separates him and North on the couch.

It isn’t until the lights are turned off and the group is plunged into darkness as the movie starts that he feels a little bit less like an outsider. He reaches over and grabs Connor’s hand like they’ve never done this before, holding onto it lightly, not squeezing it or running his thumb over the back of Connor’s hand. It’s different from his birthday party at Hank’s. He had kept his distance then, too, but the place was more crowded with people. It wasn’t strange for him to be right beside Connor.

But now it’s more intimate. Less people. More room for Gavin to keep far, far away from him like they all probably want.

Gavin leans over as the opening credits of the movie starts, as a family travels through a heavily wooded forest up to their isolated home, and he leaves a kiss against Connor’s cheek. He hopes it’s able to convey what he doesn’t want to say out loud in front of Chloe and North right now.

_I love you._

_I love you._

_I love you._

Fuck. Maybe he will die saying this to Connor. He can’t imagine any other way.

He is going to marry this boy someday, just so he can call him _husband_ instead of _boyfriend._

Connor smiles, like maybe he is thinking the same thing, and he breaks their hands apart, leans against Gavin’s shoulder. If they were alone, Gavin would pull him even closer so that they would barely touch anything but each other, but he can’t.

Instead he opts to raise a hand up, brush his thumb across Connor’s cheek, and kiss the top of his head.

_Are you sure you love him? Or do you just love that he loves you?_

No.

Gavin loves Connor. He would even if Connor hated him.

 

_October 31 st_

“Happy Halloween,” Connor says, but his voice comes out weird.

“What the hell is that?” Gavin asks, pointing up to his mouth. “You got fake teeth?”

“I’m a vampire.”

“With a lisp.”

“There’s nothing that can be done about that unfortunately,” Connor says with a shrug.

“You could just not say anything,” he says, reaching forward, running his fingers along each of the buttons on his shirt. “I could give you a reason to be quiet.”

“I’m sure you could,” and Connor leans down, kisses him quick, doesn’t let it last because they have somewhere to be.

Gavin laughs, small and quiet, “I like your costume. You make a good vampire.”

“And you,” Connor reaches forward and pulls the hood up over his head. “Make a very good cat. The whiskers really sell the look.”

“Only for you,” he says, and he means it.

Only for Connor would he spend twenty minutes trying to make some fake whiskers look right instead of jagged lines from a shaking hand. Only for Connor would he put this hoodie on and go out in public. Only for _Connor_.

 

 

They go back to the festival. They’ve gone almost every day since it started. Wandering the area and finding different booths selling various things. Connor bought a silver and purple necklace for North’s birthday, made Gavin try and carve a pumpkin with him, spent too much time wandering the hay maze and finding different dead ends together.

The last night, though, they step into the old barn, weaving through the crowd of other people dressed in various costumes. Ghosts and witches and serial killers or fairies and mermaids and princes. People dressed as things that aren’t even frightening but just make them happy to play pretend at something other than horror.

Gavin is not the type to dance. He doesn’t even think _Connor_ is the type to dance.

But they do. Like idiots, among everyone else until the music shifts from being upbeat to slow and they creep closer and closer and the barn empties of half the people in search for parties with more energy than this one.

“I love you,” Gavin says quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the music.

“Even if I bite you?”

“Even then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i speed edited this to get it up before October ended so. Uh. Happy Halloween, if you happen to be reading this on Halloween aksdflkjkjlasdf
> 
> writing/editing music;  
> Rose - Honest Men  
> Moonlight - Allman Brown


	8. November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You can’t change what’s happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it."  
> Final Girls - Riley Sager

_November 1 st_

“You have work in five hours, Con—”

“What?” he says, pushing Gavin back against the wall again. “You think I can’t bake when I’m tired?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea—” his breath hitches, stopping him mid sentence. Connor’s lips have moved from Gavin’s to his neck, his fake teeth grazing across his skin. _God._ He’d give anything for Connor to actually be a vampire. To bite him and turn them both immortal so they never have to worry about time or death or anything else ever again.

As if immortality could solve problems instead of create them.

Connor presses lightly, biting him softly and Gavin pulls Connor’s lips back to his because he will not be able to handle it if Connor keeps doing that. They both have work in a few hours. They shouldn’t be chasing the high from Halloween.

But still.

He kisses him, he pulls him back to the bedroom, they spend far too much time kissing with hands finding their ways underneath clothes but never, _never_ anything else. Gavin has felt the softness of Connor’s skin. He knows that there is an unevenness on his side, and he knows it’s a scar from how many times he’s traced his fingers over his own.

There are things he can’t ask Connor, but there are things he doesn’t need to, either.

They are both still closed books to one another—it’s just that Gavin has been dropped and opened up to a few pages for Connor to read before slamming closed again and it feels like Connor has a lock around his own in need of a thousand keys.

Still.

Is is so bad that he feels a little hurt that he trusted Connor with the secret of his own and hasn’t been returned that? Is that selfish? Cruel?

_Likely_.

He’s had so many months with Connor where he felt like a decent person, happy and loved that sometimes he forgets who he used to be. Who he still _is._

Not someone to share terrible memories with. Not someone that can comfort another person properly.

 

 

_November 4 th_

“Niles?” he asks, half scared into the phone. Niles does not call him. It’s not that it never happens, it’s just that it’s rare. Niles doesn’t like to talk. He is reserved, composed. He doesn’t call unless it’s a holiday or a birthday or an _emergency_. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine,” he says. “I was just calling to talk about Christmas.”

“Christmas?”

“Markus had an idea for you to come up for Christmas with Gavin. We can’t… I can’t come down for Thanksgiving, though. Would you still be willing to come up for both?”

“I-I suppose. It doesn’t bother me, but—I’d have to ask Gavin.”

There’s no reason for him to say no. Yes—he loves spending Christmas with Chloe and Hank. But the actual day never mattered to him. It was being around family and friends and celebrating. It was never about the fact it was exactly December 25th, and he really couldn’t care less about Thanksgiving either. It’s always just been an excuse for Hank to close _Sumo’s_ for a few days.

But Gavin is another story. He already knows that Gavin doesn’t celebrate holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. He isn’t religious and—

Well.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that family is a touchy subject. Connor never needed to know that Gavin was abused by his father to know that their relationship was rotten. Sometimes it is easy for damaged people to see the cracks in other’s façades.

“You’re aware this is late notice, right? What if I bought my tickets already?”

“Have you?”

“No.”

“It wouldn’t matter anyways,” Niles replies. “You’d still be coming here either way.”

“What a logical way to think of it.”

“Markus says that’s my best quality.”

“Was he being sarcastic?”

“Possibly. I do have to go now, though. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving?”

A split second, a hundred thoughts all leading back to the same thing:

Even if Gavin says no, Connor would still go. It’s his brother. It’s the only person in his life that has been with him from the moment he was born. He only existed in this world for three minutes without Niles.

“Yes. Of course. Love you, Niles.”

“Love you, too.”

He hangs up the phone, pushes it back into his pocket, breathes in a deep breath.

It’s like Niles had said before—

Connor comes before Markus.

Niles comes before Gavin.

That’s how they work. They might be fractured and broken and they might be repairing pieces of their relationship and it might not be perfect but they will always, _always_ be brothers.

 

 

_November 5 th_

**Gavin:** theres a stray cat by my building

**Gavin:** think ive drawn it home with the powers of this hoodie

**Connor:** Oh? Maybe you’re just a cat magnet.

**Gavin:** yea.. maybe

**Gavin:** hey. do u think it would be a bad idea if I adopted her?

**Connor:** Does your landlord allow pets? And can you feed her and take care of her?

**Gavin:** no & yeah. what he doesnt know won’t hurt him

**Gavin:** i think she might’ve been hurt.

**Gavin:** when i was a kid the people on my street kidnapped my neighbors cat on halloween and

**Gavin:** ppl do some cruel things to black cats on halloween. like superstitious bullshit

**Gavin:** listen I just mean… the cat was all black

**Gavin:** she’s all black con :(

**Connor:** I don’t want you to get in trouble though, okay? So… why don’t you adopt her. Bring her inside. Make sure she’s okay. If not take her to the vet. Feed her. My landlord allows pets, so I’ll take her in and you can come by and visit her whenever you like.

**Connor:** I’ll give you a key.

**Connor:** I’ve been meaning to anyways. ♥

**Connor:** Hey. It’s been a few hours. Is everything okay?

**Gavin:** yeah. i think so. she has fleas but shes ok

**Connor:** That’s good! Do you want to bring her over tomorrow night?

**Connor:** We can stay in… skip the diner?

**Connor:** I’ll make you waffles.

**Connor:** We can watch a movie.

**Gavin:** you know there’s no reason to try and sell me on this idea con ;)

 

 

_November 6 th_

“She’s cute.”

“I know.”

“What are you going to name her?”

“Mocha.”

“Mocha?”

“It seemed… appropriate.”

“Alright…”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. It’s cute. It suits her.”

“You’re smiling. You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I wouldn’t laugh at you.”

“Well, now I _know_ you’re lying.”

 

 

_November 7 th_

“Hey, can I talk to you?”

The way Connor says it makes his heart race. Something bad has happened. Something awful. This is going to be the moment Connor tells him something that will shatter them. He cheated on Gavin. He’s breaking up with him. He never loved him. He lied this entire time. Or, worst of all—it was real, but he just doesn’t care anymore and it’s not worth trying to pretend—

“Gavin, are you alright?” he asks, taking a step forward, a gentle smile on his lips. “It’s nothing serious. I mean—it is. But. It’s not.”

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“I’m going to visit Niles for Thanksgiving,” Connor says, the words coming out quick in a spill of anxiety. “We don’t celebrate it, but Hank likes to close _Sumo’s_ for four days anyways and he—Niles, I mean—visits me at Christmas so I go there at Thanksgiving but he’s not going to come here this Christmas so I guess I’m going there twice which I don’t mind but—”

“Connor?”

“I need to buy the tickets. I wanted to know if you wanted to come.”

_Sumo’s is closed for four days._ Friday and Saturday too, then. Fuck. If Connor wasn’t going to go to Niles, he would have found some way to plan out a perfect weekend for the two of them. Camping in the mountains or some shit even though it’s too fucking cold.

Not that he could. He hadn’t thought about this really until now.

“I promised a girl at work that I would cover Thanksgiving for her,” he says with a grimace. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay—”

“I would go—”

“I know,” Connor smiles, but it is tainted by something else. “I would love for you to meet Niles, but I don’t want you to sacrifice your job for it.”

“That’s five days without you.”

“We’ve gone longer.”

“The thirty-something years before we met don’t count.”

“No, but…” he trails off, not wanting to say what Gavin knows he’s thinking. That they broke up once. Maybe not a real breakup, since they were never really together, but they were apart. And they’ve had five days between the weekends, too, but this is different. It’s not just about time, it’s distance too.

Gavin can’t come by the café and see him on his breaks. He can’t text him and imagine that ten minutes away Connor is laying on his couch looking at his phone and smiling. He’ll be in another state. He’ll be hours behind in another time zone.

It’s not a long-distance relationship. It’s nothing like that.

But it’s completely different than anything else.

“Hey,” Gavin says, reaching out towards him. “Come here.”

Connor complies, stepping across the bed room towards him. Gavin reaches for his hands, brings each one to his lips to leave kisses against the back of them.

“I’ll miss you. Even if it’s only for five days. Even if we’ve been apart longer.”

“I know.”

“I’m gonna be obnoxious, you know that? I’ll text you a fuck ton. It’ll be like I’m there.”

“You’re not obnoxious.”

“I’m not?”

Connor smiles, looks away from Gavin’s face, “Maybe sometimes.”

“See. Even you think so.”

“I love you for it, though.”

He smiles back, but hides it against Connor’s abdomen because he can’t help but think some day Connor won’t find this trait of his as endearing. He’ll just be annoying. He’ll just be _obnoxious_. Connor loves him now and that is perfect and wonderful but he feels like it won’t last. They are both broken and they have made each other feel so much better but eventually it will wear off and Gavin will be alone again. Isn’t it inevitable?

He could see himself with Connor forever, of course.

But he cannot see Connor with _him_ forever. He is a stop along the way to who Connor will be with forever.

 

 

_November 10 th_

Gavin is hesitant to use the key—he’s only had it for a week—but he does anyways. He has the day off today and spent hours upon hours going from store to store to buy things for Mocha. Toys and treats and a bed and a collar. Pink, with a red tag engraved with her name on it. _Mocha._ His and Connor’s phone numbers both on it. Connor’s address, too. It’s all crammed on the tiny strawberry shaped metal.

He finds her curled up on Connor’s bed. Perfectly made, even the pillows are fluffed up and set out. Like a hotel. Better than the beds he makes at work. He loops the collar around Mocha’s neck, double checks the tightness before turning it so the tag rests properly, right beside the silver bell.

“Hey,” he whispers, petting the top of her head to try and ease away her annoyance at the new accessory. “You’ll keep watch on him while I’m gone, yeah?”

She blinks at him, then curls back up into a ball. Such a trustworthy cat. Not skittish at all. Just tired. A lot like himself, he thinks.

“Little girl,” he tries again, but doesn’t bother to make sure she’s awake and looking at him. “I’m trusting you to comfort him when he’s sad and I can’t be here. Can you do that for me?”

She brings her paws up, burrowing her face against the mattress.

He’ll take that as a yes. He has to.

 

 

_November 13 th_

He hasn’t had a nightmare in a while. Not for months. He had almost forgotten about them—how terrifying they are. How sometimes they don’t end but they stretch on and on and on.

There is a hand around his throat and he is pushing, shoving, screaming and it isn’t enough. He can feel his body draining of the want to fight back. To just give in. Let it happen. Get it over with.

It is Chloe at first. And then it’s Hank. And then it’s Gavin. When it switches to Niles, he seems to slip out of his grasp finally, to get away and he is running, running, running. As fast as his feet will carry him. He’s getting away. _He’s getting away—_

But he is too fast.

There is a house—somehow, he ended up on the streets when before he was in a bedroom—and he knows if he can get to that door he’ll be safe. He’ll be able to get inside and close it behind him and the lock will protect him. It isn’t that a phone might be inside that he can call for help on—that doesn’t matter. He just needs to get inside.

_But he is too fast._

He passes the house up. He turns but he turns too wide and he can’t seem to stop running and he keeps going past the house every time no matter how much he tries to slow down, how much he tries to angle himself at that door and run into it. He can only run straight past it again and again.

And eventually, something grabs him, drags him down, hits his head against the pavement. They don’t say anything. Their face shifts back and forth but he knows it’s Eddie inside. He could look like a famous actor or a stranger or his best friend or his boyfriend but it will always, _always_ be Eddie behind the face, in control of those hands.

He tries to scream but he can’t get it out. He can’t get even get out the tiniest squeak. He opens his mouth and he tries, _tries_ his absolute hardest but _nothing._

Nothing at all.

He’s crying and crying and crying and something is telling him that this is a dream, that none of this is real, and he is so aware of this but he can’t seem to wake himself up or change it or do anything. He can only cry and attempt to scream again and again.

 

 

_November 14 th_

The movement is what wakes him up first. Little tiny things. Trembling and twitching. Not the thrashing like in the movies. Just small convulsions. Things that shouldn’t happen when Connor sleeps beside him. But it wakes him up and he is trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness when he hears a strange sound. Inhuman and wrong and—

“Connor?” he whispers, reaching over, nudging him. He’s sleeping but he’s crying and Gavin’s heart beats fast as he shakes him, listening to that quiet croak again. “Connor, wake up.”

Connor whimpers, his eyes opening for a moment only to close again, for the sob to come out loud and hoarse like he can’t hold it back. He’s reaching up and grasping onto Gavin but in a strange push and pull, like he can’t make up his mind if he wants Gavin closer or far, far away.

“Hey,” he says, trying to soothe him, trying to stop this. “It’s okay. It was just a dream, Con, it’s okay—”

It seems to only illicit another loud cry. Connor has never cried like this before. He has cried in front of Gavin, yes, and he has cried sobbing so much that he has left Gavin’s shirt wet with tears—but he has always been _quiet_ about it. He has always tried to muffle it or contain it in someway. Internalize as much of the horrid nature of it back in his own body as he can.

“C-can you turn the light on?”

Gavin nods, but he hesitates for a moment. He doesn’t want to leave Connor by himself. Not even for a second. Not even to go flip the light switch. But he does. Connor’s fingers release from his shirt and he turns the light on, returning quickly back to his side. Connor presses close to his chest, hiding his face against his skin. The crying has turned quiet again, they no longer make his body tremble so badly.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know how to help. He wouldn’t even if he knew _why_ Connor was crying to begin with. He isn’t good at this.

“Connor—”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, barely gets the words out.

“It’s not your fault.”

The silence he is returned with feels familiar and wrong. The same kind of silence, the same kind of refusal to respond that he gets when people ask if he provoked his father when he was thrown through the glass.

_It is._

It is _not_ Connor’s fault. Gavin doesn’t need the story to know that. He believes that whole heartedly. It is different with him. He _did_ cause that to happen, and he was scarred up as a reminder to behave.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he whispers, pressing a kiss against the top of Connor’s head. “But you can if you want to. I love you. Nothing is going to change that. But I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.”

Connor nods.

_Okay._

_Okay._

_Okay._

But he doesn’t say anything else. They fall asleep with the lights still on.

 

 

_November 15 th_

**Gavin:** i love you

**Gavin:** just thought u should know

 

_November 16 th_

He can’t stop thinking about it. The dream. _The nightmare._

It didn’t happen that way—

He didn’t run. He had fought, but when he got free he didn’t run, as much as he wanted to. He knew what would happen if he did, so he pretended that he had forgiven Eddie for it. That it was okay. Fake it until he could get away safely.

But it had been his fault.

It always was.

 

 

_November 17 th_

**Connor:** I love you, too.

 

 

_November 20 th_

Connor adjusts the hat on top of Gavin’s head, pulling it down just a little bit lower than it should go, smiling like he’s proud of himself for it.

They haven’t been quite right since Connor’s nightmare. Gavin doesn’t know how to fix it. Or if he even can. He doesn’t even know how to make a temporary barrier that will help. He tries to act normal and Connor will smile but it is somehow wrong and never quite like it used to.

It reminds him of how they were in the beginning. How closed off Connor was. Something has pushed the walls back in between them and Gavin for the life of him can’t figure out how to make a window or build a door and he doesn’t want to punch a hole through just so he can get back to where they were.

So, he lets Connor do this.

Anything to make him smile.

They walk down the street, even though they don’t need to do this anymore. They don’t have to pass by _Sumo’s._ They don’t have to walk to the diner at all. They could drive there. But it’s the nostalgia factor. If something can have a quality of nostalgia when it hasn’t even been a year. Perhaps it is a tradition—even if sometimes they break it on other weekends.

“Gavin,” Connor says quietly as they cross the bridge. His name is almost drowned out by the sound of the water beneath them, of the cars passing by. “What do you say we skip the diner?”

“Yeah?”

“I just…” he sighs, looks up to the sky. “I just want to walk around for a little bit. Not be around people.”

Gavin nods, and because Connor isn’t looking at him and he isn’t sure if it was seen, he squeezes his fingers tightly in his own, “Okay. Let’s walk.”

 

 

_November 21 st_

He wants it to pass. He wants it to move along. He doesn’t want this feeling to creep back into him again. It’s destroying him. It’s destroying _them._

He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have started a relationship before he knew he was okay. He went to therapy and had Chloe and Hank but this is different. Gavin knows very little. Barely anything at all. They shouldn’t be together. He’s too messed up. He knows Gavin has his own problems too—

_They shouldn’t be together._

It chants over and over in his head until it hurts to think about and he feels sick to his stomach.

They. Shouldn’t. Be. Together.

 

 

_November 23 rd_

**Gavin:** you packed yet?

**Connor:** Of course.

**Connor:** I’ll make sure Hank brings me by your place before I go.

**Connor:** I’m going to miss you so much :(

 

 

_November 24 th_

Gavin is waiting outside of the apartment when he arrives. It’s freezing and snowing but he’s still there, leaning up against the brick wall with his hands in his pockets and smiling out towards Connor as he gets out of the car.

If it was summer, if it was for a shorter trip, if it was anything other than what it was—Gavin might have been the one to drive him. On that ridiculous motorcycle of his. But it’s four, nearly five days if he counts the hours he spent at work today.  His bag is too big. The roads are too bad. The weather is too cold.

He wishes that he could have had the nerve to ask Hank to let Gavin ride with them to the airport, but he didn’t really want to do that to either of them. They don’t like to be around each other. Connor isn’t going to force them to be friends—it isn’t worth it.

“Hey—”

Connor cuts him off, holding him tight. _Almost five days._ They shouldn’t be together, he knows that. He isn’t going to forget that. Neither of them were ready for this. But still. He doesn’t want to let it go. He doesn’t want to let Gavin go right now just to leave for the airport, how can he ever manage it for forever?

How did he manage it before?

He texted him. He let them drift apart with letters on a screen typed out slowly, methodically. Not that it was easy. But it was _easier._

“I love you so much,” he whispers, and he thinks the way he says it must clue Gavin in on something because even though he’s hugging Connor back it isn’t until he says the words that he returns how constricting the hug is. How painful if is to breathe. How painful it is to leave.

Five days is a long time.

Five days is nothing at all.

_He has to go._

They’re cutting this close. The snow clogged roads. The traffic. The airport security and check in times. He needs to leave.

“Connor—”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he knows he’s crying and he knows Gavin is reaching out to him, but he has to rip himself away. “I love you.”

“Connor—”

He is quick. Fast to get back into the car, to pull it closed behind him. He can’t let Gavin say it back. Not when he doesn’t know what’s going to happen, when everything is so unsettled and wrong inside of his chest. He is a jar with all the terrible things and all the best pieces of his life dropped inside and shaken up again and again and again until they are too mixed up to make sense of any more.

Eddie was terrible. There is no denying that. But was he somehow good if he ended up this way? Was it somehow okay because he ended up the type of person he is now, even if right this very second he is sobbing in Hank’s car and watching Gavin’s face fall in the mirror and he is seconds away from being unable to even breathe?

Gavin is amazing. Wonderful. The best person he has ever met. But is he somehow bad because of how Connor is feeling right now? Because everything inside of him is hurt and confused and raw?

He doesn’t know how he’s meant to feel. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to view things. He hates the idea of thinking Eddie was somehow good for him because it led him to Gavin. He hates thinking that Gavin is somehow bad for him because he brings back the memories of his trauma.

“Connor—”

“Don’t ask me if I’m alright,” he whispers. He isn’t. He’s not. He might never be.

 

 

Crowds have a way of forcing emotions under control sometimes. Even when they are at their wildest. The idea of a hundred strangers seeing him bawl forces his tears back and even though Connor knows his eyes are red rimmed and the skin underneath them is irritated, he isn’t crying. They won’t see him cry.

He gets on the plane, forces the four-hour flight to be entirely dedicated to putting everything in check. He hasn’t done anything. He’s still with Gavin. That hasn’t changed anything.

And it was just a dream.

Just one stupid dream that put him back in this place.

It doesn’t mean anything. He could get back to where he was a few weeks ago. Happy. Smiling. Laughing. Petting Mocha and watching Gavin play a video game and teaching him how to bake coffee cake and _smiling_ and _laughing_ and _happy._

It seems so far away now.

 

 

“Connor!”

Markus is the one to yell to him. But Niles is right beside him, waiting. Connor runs like a teenager across the space, crashing against Niles, hugging him tight. _Brother, brother, brother._ Niles hugs back and he smells like blueberries and honey and _home_.

“I missed you,” Connor says, and he is glad that maybe the tears in his eyes will be mistaken for that. At least some portion of them are. He turns to Markus, smiling. “You, too.”

“I’m sure,” Markus replies. “Where are your bags?”

“The baggage claim at the end,” he says. “They haven’t sent them up yet.”

“Let’s go then,” Niles says, leading the way, tugging Markus along by his hand.

 

 

Markus’ and Niles’ apartment is nice. Clean. A piano sitting in the living room, taking up the majority of the space. Connor remembers sitting on the couch last year, watching the two of them by the piano. Niles knows little—Markus gave him all the easy parts.

They send him off towards the guest bedroom and he curls up on the bed quickly, exhausted from his emotions and the long day. There’s a text from Gavin on his phone that he couldn’t bring himself to open until now. He’s replied to Chloe and Hank—made sure they knew he landed safely, arrived at the apartment with his brother without any problems.

But _Gavin_.

His name sends his head spinning.

_Gavin_ did nothing wrong. _Gavin_ was not the cause of this. But he is the _subject._

 

**Gavin:** i miss you already.

**Gavin:** i love you, you know that right?

**Gavin:** land yet?

**Connor:** Of course. Everything’s going great! I’m headed to bed now. Too tired…

**Gavin:** okay.

**Gavin:** hey. i know youre exhausted. But.

**Gavin:** what happened?

**Gavin:** you were barely there long enough for me to see you.

**Gavin:** did i do something?

**Connor:** No. Of course not. I just hate goodbyes.

**Connor:** And we were going to be late.

**Connor:** I’m sorry. I regret it already.

**Gavin:** ♥ ♥ ♥

**Gavin:** I love you so much.

**Gavin:** I love you so much I used proper grammar for that.

**Gavin:** sweet dreams ♥

 

Will he ever stop crying?

 

 

_November 25 th_

They don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. They never do. The point of visiting isn’t to celebrate—it’s just to take advantage of the time off that they’re given because other people do.

Connor spends the day watching Markus and Niles be cute together and feeling slightly rotten about the fact Gavin isn’t here with him. He sits beside Markus when Niles disappears to take a shower and describes Gavin’s features to Markus as he sketches them out. Soft and faint and not quite there because Connor can’t seem to find the right words for the shape of his jaw or the way he smiles. He helps Markus in the kitchen when any of the meals are cooked and spends twice as long as he needs to sitting on the floor of the shower thinking about Gavin.

He can’t stop crying at the concept of breaking up with him. He hasn’t done it. It’s just a thought. It’s just a single idea in the back of his head—he hasn’t _acted_ on anything, but it _has_ broken him.

 

 

_November 26 th_

“Hey,” Connor says quietly. Markus is out—not Black Friday shopping, but visiting his friends for a few hours. Not necessarily alone because Niles isn’t friends with Josh and Simon, more so that he is giving the two of them a little time alone. “Can I talk to you?”

“Of course.”

Connor nods and he sits down across from him and he breathes in a deep breath,

And he lets the entire story out in an exhale.

From the second Niles moved away, to Eddie, including every terrible detail, all the way until now. Him sitting across from Niles. Waiting for a response, for a _why didn’t you tell me before?_

“Are you okay?” Niles asks instead.

“No.”

“Because of Gavin?”

_No._

He hesitates too long.

“Josh works at a flower shop,” Niles says quietly. “I’m sure if I asked him, he would be able to hire you.”

“What do you mean? Move here?”

“If you think it would help.”

 

 

_November 27 th_

_If you think it would help._

He could move here. He could run away. He could be gone from it all. He could start over. He could pretend his scars were from something else again and again until maybe he believes it.

It isn’t going to solve anything, though.

He is still going to be like this.

He’ll just be in another state.

And Hank and Gavin and Chloe and even Sumo and Mocha won’t be here.

 

 

_November 28 th_

Markus and Niles drop him off at the airport. He leaves them both with hugs and the promise that he’ll be back during Christmas. Hank picks him up when he lands, and he tries to laugh along with him but he knows even Hank is still thinking about how much Connor was crying before he left, how it could not be attributed to his time apart from Gavin.

He asks to be dropped off at Gavin’s. It’s the only other words he says besides for _hello_ and _I missed you_ and _how is Chloe and Sumo?_

The rest of the drive is spent in silence as they make their way towards Gavin’s place. Connor says goodbye, taking his bag and heading up the stairs. He didn’t tell Gavin when he was going to land.  He wants to see him first. Make it to be like a surprise. He doesn’t know.

He misses him. He wants him. He feels like he has been emptied of all the good in him and he spent he entire weekend crying and thinking about how they might break up and how he could move and what he would lose and he _loves_ Gavin and he just wants to _see_ him.

 

Connor had texted him when his plane left and if he does math, he can figure out when the plane is _supposed_ to land, but the time zones are messing everything up and he can’t make any sense of it and its just frustrating him.

He paces around the apartment, trying to tell himself that Connor _would_ let him know, wouldn’t he?

_Wouldn’t he?_

Gavin jumps at the sound of the knock on the door. He’ll never get used to it. It’s always so sudden. He walks over to it, pulling it open quickly, ready to chew out whoever’s bothered him in his time of anxiety tonight.

“Connor?”

Connor smiles, but it is the same pained smile that he has had all month. He looks like he wants to say something, but he gives up somewhere along the way. He moves quickly. Into the apartment, bag on the ground, kissing Gavin hungrily _._ He hears the door closed but he is lost in feeling of Connor against him.

It was not how he thought their reunion would go.

It is how he fantasized about it, though.

 

He wants him. It's not often that he wants him like this, but he does. Desperately. He has never felt like he has been boiled over so fully before. It has usually passed by the time he sees Gavin next. But _god_ he cannot think of anything else than Gavin's lips on his and the press of his hands against his body and the urge to shed his clothes and stop trying to be so careful all the time.

Connor pushes him backwards into the apartment. Further and further until they're in the bedroom and he can push Gavin onto the bed and straddle him. He hasn't allowed this to happen yet because he's terrified and he’s still terrified but right now his thoughts are somewhere else, too. Lost in this. Gavin's mouth on his. Gavin's hand on his back. Gavin's leg between his thighs and if he moves _just_ right—

 

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

They've kissed something _like_ this before, but not quite like this. Not so urgent. Not so needy. Definitely not with Connor grinding against him.

He's thought about this. A dozen times. A hundred times. A thousand times. He's dreamt it and woken up beside Connor and had to find a way to leave the bed without Connor noticing that he's hard and wanting, wanting, _wanting_.

“Don't look,” Connor says quietly.

_Don't look. Don't look. Don't look._

He doesn't. He tips his head back as Connor moves off of him, undoes the buckle on his pants and pulls them down slowly. He can feel Connor's hand moving carefully up his thighs, holding onto the elastic of his boxers before pulling them down, too.

His fingers are cold when they touch him, but he doesn't care. They are careful strokes, drawn out, torturous.

Fuck.

 

Connor wants him too much for this. He has waited too long for this. He can't take it as slow as he wants to. He tries, he tries. But he can't manage it. If Connor waits too long he will start to overthink everything. It will all come tumbling down and he doesn't want to overthink this because he _wants_ it.

“Don't look,” he whispers again, because he doesn't want Gavin to see him. He sheds his clothing—all but the hoodie he stole from Gavin. He doesn’t want him to see the scars on his thighs but he can hide the ones on his torso.

_Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look._

Gavin doesn’t. He keeps his head turned away from Connor when he makes his way to the nightstand and retrieves the condom and the lube and he doesn’t look when Connor he slips the rubber over him and he preps himself.

It isn’t even until Connor kisses him again that he looks back. Not down. Just at his face.

It makes him want to cry. That he doesn’t have to explain specifics to him. That all he wants is Gavin to not see his body and how much he understands that with two words.

_Don’t look._

 

They kiss slow but Connor’s movements against him are hurried and they keep breaking apart for air and panting and moaning and Gavin just wants to hold him in place and tell him that it’s okay, to take his time, that everything is fine, but Connor is rushing this and it’s been _so long—_

 

It’s over quickly. Not that it surprises him, or even bothers him. It was expected. It’s been months since they got together. It’s been months since Gavin must have been with anyone. But Connor?

It’s been three years.

He is surprised he lasted as long as he did.

He is surprised by how much he still wants it.

He is surprised by how much he wants to cry, too.

But he doesn’t. He watches Gavin get up and leave for the bathroom, as he changes into a different pair of clothes. He waits until Gavin is laying beside him, before he gets up and does the same. He has never had to be careful about some of his scars until now. There was no boyfriend or girlfriend to get dressed in front of. There was no friends he went to the lake or the pool with. He has stayed home. He has dedicated himself to _Sumo’s_ and loneliness.

He’s always wanted them hidden and kept away from view, but they were placed were they were because of how _easy_ it would be cover them up. It is different when he has no pants on. It is different when he drops his shirts to the ground and replaces them with clothes stolen from Gavin’s dresser. He breathes in the deep scent of Gavin, of leather and cleaning supplies and coffee, and returns to the bed. He doesn’t realize until he reaches out to touch him how far away he’s laying.

Gavin, in his normal spot, towards the middle.

Connor, on the edge.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey.”

“I missed you.”

Gavin returns him with a weak smile, and Connor thinks maybe under different circumstances he’d make a joke right now, but he can’t. He wonders how much of this he has covered up. How much Gavin knows just from assumptions based on Connor’s actions. He was good at keeping the details hidden—he’s only ever told Gavin how difficult it is to be affectionate for him, and he has never had to push Gavin away because Gavin has never asked for more. He has always waited for Connor to make the first move in regards to sex.

But does he know?

Does he know that Eddie turned him into a porcelain doll and threw him against a wall? Does he know that he was broken into a thousand pieces and spent years building himself back together? Does he know that the dream a few weeks ago made him fall from his precarious position and break all over again?

“I love you,” he says quietly.

They shouldn’t be together.

But they are.

Connor doesn’t think he will ever let that go.

“I love you, too.”

 

_November 29 th_

His first thought is _what the fuck woke him up?_

His second is that Connor is missing from the bed.

It’s not even three in the morning. There are the soft sounds of sirens in the distance, but there always is. The bed beside him is cold—empty for a while now.

Gavin stands, walking slowly towards the hallway, glancing around the living room, fear caught in his throat. That he imagined Connor coming back. That something tragic happened. That Connor would have left him in the middle of the night when he has _never_ done that before.

“Connor?”

He doesn’t turn the light on, but he catches sight of the movement in the shadows and the quiet noise made in recognition of his name. _Connor._

He makes his way over quickly, sinking to the floor beside the couch where Connor sits, wrapped in one of the blankets that Gavin bought on sale when he was bored and went out to investigate the hype around Black Friday.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

He watches Connor’s shadow shake his head, and his heart breaks.

“Is there anything I can do?” _Is there anything I did?_

Another shake of his head, the slight raise of his shoulders.

“Do you want to be alone?”

He sees Connor nod. A tiny thing. Barely noticeable in the dark.

_Oh._

He gets up, his entire body hurting like someone has pushed him in front of a moving car. There is a strange sense of guilt attached to it, too. That he shouldn’t be so selfish. That he shouldn’t feel entitled to Connor’s space or be a vital part in comforting him. How many times has he pushed people away because he wanted to be alone to cry? _How many of those times had he regretted it instantly?_ How many of those times had he wished and hoped someone would notice he was upset and they would come find him, but they never even said one word to begin with?

But it isn’t necessarily about whether or not Connor wants to cry on his own right now.

It’s that they are so fragile. Ever since he had his nightmare, he has felt Connor pull away from him more and more and more and maybe he foolishly thought that because Connor came back and kissed him like that, because the two had sex, that it would somehow close the rift between them but it seems to have only opened it wider.

He hadn’t realized how small their broken parts were before tonight. He thought it was a crevice, but it was just a crack and now it’s a canyon.

 

 

They are strained and broken and Connor is lost and terrified and he feels like he has been picked up and thrown out to sea and the terror and the pain and the fear don’t stop coming and the words Eddie spoke to him _no one will ever love you after what I’ve done to you_ just keep coming back and cycling through again and again and they won’t stop there aren’t every any pauses it just goes and goes and goes and goes—

 

 

_November 30 th_

He watches Gavin pick up Mocha from the couch, setting her by the window where Connor has moved a shelf for her to look out from. They’ve barely spoken two words to each other, but Gavin still comes by and watches television or bad movies with him and he has stayed over the last few nights, always sleeping on the couch. Here, but not _here_.

Together but _separate_.

That’s how he was with Eddie.

The thought hits him so hard it’s like a slap in the face and he sucks in a breath and it’s so painful for a second he wonders if his ribs have punctured holes into his lungs.

Him and Eddie were nothing like how him and Gavin are now. Gavin has lost everything _but_ affection for him. He still reaches out and touches him softly, he still gives him gentle smiles, he is cautious. Eddie was everything _but_ affectionate. They were together but only when Eddie wanted sex.

“He never hit me,” Connor says suddenly, and he doesn’t know where the words come from, but they do. They spill out and he can’t stop them. “He hurt me, but he didn’t hit me. I mean—he still physically hurt me, but it wasn’t the same. He liked to bruise my arms because he thought it looked pretty and he liked to cut me because he liked blood and he liked to see what I looked like when I was about to pass out but he didn’t hit me.”

“Connor—”

“He never even hurt me without permission,” he says, but that is a small lie. Unimportant. Gavin doesn’t need to know about the bruises on his wrist whenever Connor tried to walk away from an argument. He doesn’t need to know about the blue and purple that decorated his neck when he walked calmly into _Sumo’s_ the morning before he left Eddie for good. “He never asked, and he never gave me a choice but he didn’t do it unless I told him it was okay, either.”

Gavin is silent, staring at him with an expression Connor doesn’t want to decipher in fear of seeing pity or disgust so he keeps his eyes on Mocha looking happy and excited about her new perch while Connor thinks of how often Eddie pressed against the wounds on his chest to make the blood seep through the gauze again.

There are so many things about Eddie that Connor can’t tell Gavin. He can’t tell him about how controlling he was. He can’t tell him about how often he was told that Eddie was the only one that could love Connor because Connor was hard to love. He can’t tell Gavin that Eddie had a way of phrasing these things in a way that was beautiful and romantic at the time and now makes him sick to his stomach because he thinks of how true they are even when Gavin smiles at him or tells him he loves him.

“He liked public sex,” Connor says instead, and he has to look away to the floor. A different apartment than the one he lived in when he dated Eddie. He had to move and even here he had felt the need to scrub the floorboards and the walls to make sure there somehow wasn’t a trace of him that Connor had brought in. “He never—I didn’t. I mean… it was difficult. I didn’t want any of it but I didn’t _mind_ any of it but he—”

He never gave Connor a choice.

“Con?”

“He never raped me,” he continues. “He just never…”

Never let Connor do something else.

He only took his insides and twisted them up and turned them malicious and evil and violent and wrong. He made Connor crave violence like a drug. He made him terrified to hold hands and kiss cheeks and say _I love you_ without it being spat out with anger.

He left him scars that have never quite healed.

He left him with the inability to understand his wants and desires as anything other than terrible, terrible, terrible messes.

He took and he took and he took and carved out Connor’s insides until he was just a shell and he’s been hoping that Gavin could fill him up with goodness and sweetness but his nightmare has left it cracked out on the sidewalk wasted and lost in the cement.

All that work,

Just spilling down into the drains.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he whispers and he can’t stop crying and he can’t tell if he wants Gavin to understand his words or not but he needs to get them out even if they’re unintelligible. “I don’t know how to fix this.”

Gavin steps across the room towards him. They are slow steps. Each one thought out again and again. His movements are not hesitant because he doesn’t know if he should hug Connor or that he doesn’t want to. Connor has learned this from the beginning of their relationship. A slow decision, waiting to see if it’s what _Connor_ wants.

And he does.

He wants _so_ much.

He wants happiness and love and to stop thinking of this but he _can’t._

It is never going to go away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/296vro82ffu2tm06um7mrg9bo/playlist/1V17ySYRzB01YyMS4dKnLU?si=wqnsLOh6QQ-tWFJCkhTTMA) | writing/editing music;  
>  All I Want - Dawn Golden  
> Waves - Dean Lewis (acoustic)  
> Reasons Not To Die - Ryn Weaver (demo)


	9. December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe you're still trying to survive."  
> After the Woods - Kim Savage

_December 1 st_

“You told him?”

“Yes.”

“Everything?”

_No._

Not everything. How could he tell Gavin everything? He couldn’t even tell Hank everything. All Hank knows is that he walked in _Sumo’s_ one morning with a bruise on his neck in the shape of a hand and it was enough for him to help Connor. He didn’t ask for any more information. It wasn’t necessary, and Connor would have lied anyways. He wouldn’t have been able to get the words out to explain how utterly weak and stupid he was.

He lied to Chloe at first, too. That it was just that one time. That it was enough for him to know to get out before anything else happened. It took him a year to tell her everything, and it took him three to tell Niles, but Gavin—

If he hadn’t been thrown back down the rabbit hole again, he might not have said anything at all.

Chloe reaches out to him, squeezes his hand a little bit and lets go at the sound of the bell behind them chiming. _Back to work,_ with an apology written on her face and whispered under her lips, she turns around.

 

 

_December 4 th_

Gavin just wishes he knew what happened to him.

Because all he wants right now is to hunt Eddie down and beat the shit out of him.

 

 

_December 5 th_

“Any plans for Christmas?”

“Not a single one.”

“Would you like to come with me? To Seattle?”

“And meet your brother?”

“Yes.”

“I’d love to.”

 

 

_December 9 th_

Connor pulls the shirt up over his head, setting it down on the bed and taking careful steps over to the mirror. It’s been a while since he looked at himself naked. He doesn’t want the reminder of the scars. He doesn’t want the image of them fresh and vibrant and there. If he keeps them buried deep, it is harder for them to resurface.

He traces them slowly, thinking about the ones on Gavin’s body, and then he thinks of how the ones on their hands reflect one another, and the ones in their heads clash. Scarred and bruised and beaten, the two of them. Maybe it’s why they fit so well together.

Trauma seeks trauma. It can never seem to let it die. Instead, it feeds off one another until the person is just a shell left behind.

The scars are not as bad as he remembers them being. They’re fainter, but they still exist and that’s enough for him to turn away from the mirror.

 

 

_December 11 th_

Gavin kisses him again. More and more every time they see one another, which is almost every day now. Gavin is always over to visit Mocha, but after November, he had held his distance in the strangest of ways. Kisses on his forehead and holding his hand but not quite resting his hand on Connor’s waist anymore, not moving upwards underneath his shirt or leaving kisses on his neck.

It fell away, and it is a tentative rebuild. Connor can’t blame him. He’s thankful, even. It is difficult to explain how much he hates being treated like a broken thing but how much he feels like one. Gavin’s tenderness to him eases it away, it doesn’t enforce it.

 

 

_December 14 th_

“Don’t look.”

He wouldn’t. He doesn’t need Connor to tell him that.

But they’re in the shower, and Connor’s hands are delicate on the skin of his back. Gavin feels lips press against his neck and his shoulder and the water spills across him _._ He doesn’t turn around and he keeps his eyes closed.

Connor’s fingers make their way across his scars, a silent question and a silent understanding in each and every touch. Most of them came from his father. Most of them came from protecting his brother, his sister.

Maybe someday he’ll tell Connor more about them. That his father was a cheating bastard and knocked up some woman and she didn’t want Gavin (because who would ever want him? She was smart enough to know what a terrible person he’d become even as an infant) and so he grew up pretending to be Elijah’s twin until people started to notice the little differences between him and the rest of the family.

“What does this mean?”

Connor’s hand is on his side, moving upwards, tracing the design there.

It feels so absolutely silly to say it out loud _._ And he could lie. He’s lied before. _I just like flowers. They’re just pretty to me. I liked the design. I was too drunk that night to really think it through._

But he doesn’t want to lie to Connor, and he feels like he can trust him with this, even if it’s just one word.

“Growth.”

Breaking free.

Moving on.

 

Connor traces the shape of the tattoo that blooms across Gavin’s side. An explosion of flowers and petals, trapped inside of a triangle that has been shattered, little fragments falling off of one another.

_Growth._

“When did you get it?”

“Started it a year ago. Went in every couple of weeks to get it finished.”

“It’s not done?”

“It is now.”

He nods, even though he knows Gavin can’t see him do it. A small gesture of understanding. He was getting this tattoo worked on and Connor never even knew. It’s such a strange secret, but the way Gavin had said the word _growth_ made him understand why.

It’s ink. It’s blood. It’s deeply personal.

“I love you,” he says immediately. _Please don’t forget that because I’m broken right now._

Gavin turns around, his eyes closed. He reaches up, feeling along Connor’s shoulders, touching the side of his neck. He smiles and leans forward, helping Gavin close the gap to kiss him. _His eyes are closed._ He didn’t even want to risk seeing something that Connor didn’t want him to see.

It makes him want to say it again and again. _I love you I love you I love you._

A chant. A rhythm. A mantra.

No, he has not forgotten that they shouldn’t be together. He still thinks they would have been better if they waited, if they were in a better mental space before they got together, but if they spent time apart? If they took a break? They would never get back together again. It would be a line they couldn’t uncross.

He feels confused and lost and he knows the worst part of this is starting to fade away and he feels guilty for trying to cover all his bases, trying to explain away things.

Mostly, he is terrified.

 

 

_December 18 th_

They sit across from each other in the diner like they always do, with their hands stretched across the table and holding onto one another.

This is his sister’s wife’s diner. It’s a fact he has always known. He and his sister don’t speak anymore. They don’t get along. They remind each other too much about what happened to them as kids. They used to lean on each other. Protect one another. But his scar isn’t just a reminder to himself, it’s a reminder for her and Elijah, too.

He wishes that right now, sitting across from Connor, his sister could come through the door and tease him about his boyfriend. He wishes that Elijah would cause some type of mayhem that he would be embarrassed about, but Connor would laugh at. He wishes he had pictures from his childhood to show Connor or stories that weren’t always lingering with a bitter aftertaste in his mouth.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m okay,” Gavin says, but he knows there are tears in his eyes and he feels guilty for it.

How desperately did he want Connor to open up to him, and he can’t even explain this?

And now that Connor has, he’s still kept so much of it hidden. _Hypocrite._

“I just really love you.”

And there’s too much to unbury.

A strange feeling—

To reciprocate, to relate, to let Connor know he isn’t alone.

To feel selfish, to make this about him, to take away Connor’s pain and replace it with his own.

“You want to go home?”

_Home._

“No,” he says. This is the only place where he can feel close to his sister. His only attachment to her. He doesn’t want to give that up yet tonight. He needs to stay here and pretend for a few minutes longer. “I’m okay.”

 

 

_December 19 th_

He finds himself watching Gavin in the morning as they get ready for the day. Connor helps him make the bed, carefully flattening blankets and fixing the pillowcases and leaving a spot for Mocha to jump up and curl right between the two halves.

Connor hasn’t had two halves for a long time. It is weird to think of one side of the bed belonging to him and one side belonging to Gavin. He slept in the middle before. Tossing and turning against the pillows and staying up until his eyes were too tired to read another word of a book or pay attention to a video playing on his phone’s screen.

_Do they work well together?_

The question is creeping back in his head again, just when he thought he had gone a day without it. But he is overly aware of whether or not there is imbalance in their relationship. Gavin has told him secrets of his past but he hasn’t told them all.

And Connor?

It’s not like he’s said all of his either. But he knows he’s doing it for Gavin’s protection. Keep him from knowing the entirety of the terrible nature of his last relationship. Gavin might think of Connor as broken—and he likely does—but there is a difference between being tiny fragments that are almost dust and being large pieces that can be capable of getting glued back together again.

“Hey,” he whispers, because for some reason he can barely speak these days without feeling like he is too loud or saying too much, because he has already let loose too many secrets and everything else feels like it needs to be clamped down again. “I love you.”

Gavin turns, and he smiles but in a way that makes Connor feel absolutely guilty and terrified. It isn’t the same smile he had before. It is tainted by Connor’s trauma and sadness and now pity pulls it back from being like it used to.

“I love you, too.”

Connor nods and takes the last step forward, pulling Gavin close to his chest. He needs warmth right now. He needs to feel Gavin’s head rested against his. A reminder.

_Do they work well together?_

Yes. They do. They work wonderfully.

That doesn’t mean they should be together, and that is the real question, isn’t it? The one he actually keeps coming back together? _Should we be together?_

 

 

_December 23 rd_

Gavin leaves a very long, very overly detailed note stuck to the fridge for Chloe when she comes to check up on Mocha while they’re gone. She already has her own keys, but Connor double checks that they work before Hank drives them to the airport. Their suitcases were packed the night before, a list of items carefully thought out and clothes carefully chosen.

On the plane, Gavin falls asleep against his shoulder. A book lays out on the tray in front of Connor, untouched because his head feels fuzzy and wrong this high up. A baby cries a few rows back and he lets out a small sigh, hoping it doesn’t disturb Gavin’s rest.

In a few hours, they’ll land. They’ll see Niles. They’ll say hello and Gavin will finally be introduced to him and Markus and maybe it will change everything and maybe it will change absolutely nothing.

But for now, Gavin sleeps. The baby cries. His head feels like it has been stuffed with cotton and shoved underwater.

 

 

Niles looks at Gavin as if he is an escaped serial killer. A little bit fearful, a little bit angry, a little bit like he could punch him.

“Niles, this is Gavin.” he says, motioning towards Gavin, as if he would be introducing anyone other than the boyfriend he said he was bringing along. “Gavin, Niles.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gavin says, but he doesn’t pull his hands from his pockets, and Niles doesn’t move his from his side. No handshake. Maybe for the best.

“Where’s Markus?” Connor asks, his heart is beating a little too fast in his chest right now. He wants it to calm down but it refuses.

“Keeping the car warm.”

He nods in response. Of course. Last time they had come back to the car and the three of them found themselves regretful of not having it warm to take away the chill of the evening. Niles learns from his mistakes, Connor supposes.

“T-the bags,” he says, realizing how quiet the three of them are being. He hasn’t even given Niles a hug yet like he normally does, but his body feels like someone has wrapped it tight with duct-tape and he has no ability to do anything but stand here like an idiot. “We should get the bags.”

 

 

The car ride back to Markus’ and Niles’ place is driven in utter silence besides for the quiet radio playing. Markus tries to make conversation but fails—Niles isn’t exactly a talker, and Connor is too busy focusing on how uncomfortable the situation is to do anything about fixing it.

He looks out towards the window, watching buildings go by when he feels Gavin’s hand touch his. He turns back, giving him a soft smile as their fingers interlace. Gavin gives them a soft squeeze, a careful nod. _I’m trying,_ he’s saying.

Connor squeezes them back, offers the most genuine smile he can manage. _I know._

 

 

Connor excuses him and Gavin to the guest room after an hour of strained conversation. _Tired,_ he says, _the time difference and the plane._ It’s not even ten here, but Markus and Niles don’t argue his excuse, and it isn’t necessarily a lie either. He is exhausted. He worked earlier in the day and took the first flight they could feasibly manage right after to make the most of their time off.

Gavin doesn’t look when Connor changes his clothes. He drops his shirt onto the top of his bag, looking over towards the small mirror embedded in the armoire. Gavin on the bed with his face towards the wall, his phone in his hands but he’s not looking at it. Connor with his hands reaching for the shirt he plans to pull on next, his arm stretched out in a way that exposes the scars along his side.

He looks back, his voice shaking as he whispers, “Gavin?”

Gavin turns automatically, his eyes landing on Connor’s face for a moment before down at his bare torso, then away quickly again, “Sorry—”

“Gavin,” he repeats, stepping over to him. “I—”

“I didn’t mean to look.”

“It’s okay.”

Isn’t it? Isn’t it okay for Gavin to see his scars? Isn’t it alright that he sees them? Or is Connor being selfish, putting him in a situation like this, showing them to Gavin when he won’t be able to run away because they’re revolting and terrible and reveal something that Gavin had only heard in words and not seen written against his skin?

Gavin looks back slowly to his face and when Connor gives him a tiny nod he looks down towards the scars. Neat rows, methodically created. Starting at his ribs, moving downwards in almost expertly measured out places.

There are more, just below his waist band, following the line downwards to his mid-thigh. There are some on the insides of his legs when Eddie decided he liked that spot better. There are some on his right shoulder blade, too. They don’t continue down as far. Eddie never got the chance.

Most of them are weighted towards this side of his body. Sometimes they feel heavy, like they could topple him over. One wrong step and he might not be able to carry it anymore.

“He did this?”

Connor nods, and he can see in Gavin’s eyes how much he wants to kill him. It is the same rage he had the first time Connor confided into him, let that tiny bit of information loose that he might not be able to be the soft and loving boyfriend Gavin would want him to be. His fear of being unaffectionate in ways that Gavin might need. Gavin wanted to hurt him then. Now he wants to kill him.

“What hap—”

“I don’t know,” he says, before Gavin can finish the question. _What happened to him?_ He doesn’t know. He doesn’t want to know. Eddie disappeared from his life and didn’t come back. Connor moved, he took more hours at _Sumo’s,_ he tried to move on.

“Connor…”

“Hank hinted that he framed him with drugs,” he says quietly, turning away. “To spare me a trial. But I don’t know, otherwise.”

He has to accept this as the truth. That Hank wouldn’t lie to him. That the charges stuck. That Eddie is in prison right now, even if it’s a crime he didn’t commit. But Connor has never checked because he is too scared of the alternative. Knowing exactly _what_ happened to Eddie will destroy whatever good he has now, unless that _what_ is Eddie dead or in prison. But in the small off chance that Hank’s plan didn’t work and Connor did nothing to stop him from hurting someone else and finding that Eddie is with another someone else?

That would destroy everything.

Ignorance is bliss, he thinks. He prefers that.

He reaches for the shirt and he is halfway to pulling it up when he feels Gavin’s hand touching his wrist. Gentle, cold fingers leaving a track of frozen skin behind it before it settles on his spine. Connor stiffens for a moment, freezing in place at the thought of Gavin touching his scars, but he isn’t.

“What is this?”

He turns slowly, facing Gavin with a breath caught in his throat, “What?”

“You have a tattoo.”

“Yes—”

“You didn’t tell me.” There is a smile on Gavin’s face, an almost trace of actual amusement out of this, “I told you about mine, but you didn’t tell me you had one.”

Because he hadn’t thought he’d be showing Gavin his scars, and because he had associated Gavin so heavily with the first person to ever see them or feel them when it isn’t true. The person that tattooed the ones and zeroes against his spine had seen glimpses, no matter how well Connor tried to keep them hidden. He knows that the stranger likely thought they were from self-harm. Maybe that would be a preferable reason. If he had inflicted them upon himself, he would have no one in his life to fear and no one in his life to blame but himself.

“It’s nothing,” he whispers. “It’s just—”

“Binary code?”

He nods.

“What does it say?” he asks, then his face shifts and he shakes his head. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me that, Con.”

He nods once more, but he _wants_ to tell Gavin. His mouth opens for the meaning to slip out but he can’t quite manage to get there. He doesn’t understand why this is so hard. He doesn’t understand why one nightmare last month has changed so much of the two of them.

Gavin leans forward and presses a kiss against his cheek, turning back to the bed, “Seriously, Connor. You don’t have to tell me. Don’t worry about it, alright? Let’s get some rest.”

Connor lets out a breath, one that had been kept in his lungs for far too long. He pulls his replacement shirt over his head and finishes getting ready for bed. It is strange sleeping in this room with Gavin. When he lays down beside him in the dark, it makes his heart almost hurt at the thought of the future.

Before, he accepted that they might not be together forever. It is ridiculous to assume every relationship is going to end in marriage or family or dying in each other’s arms. But it wasn’t as if he didn’t _hope_ for the best.

And now he can’t stop thinking that eventually the two of them will break apart, and the likelihood of that happening when they are old and gray is too difficult to really consider a possibility. In a few years, he might be back in this apartment visiting his brother and sleeping on this bed and unable to think of this exact moment.

The future is a heavy weight and it is crushing his ribs and his lungs and he can’t breathe properly anymore.

“I love you,” he says, because he does. Because as much as the question of how or when or _if_ they will break up doesn’t really matter. He loves Gavin. Gavin loves him. It isn’t enough to solve their problems and it isn’t enough to get the terror of loneliness and trauma from his head but it is enough for him to kiss Gavin and close his eyes for some much needed sleep.

 

 

_December 24 th_

Morning isn’t any better. Niles and Markus are both still strange to be around. Niles is just… _strange._ He is like a weird version of Connor. Quieter and more serious. Gavin caught him smiling once, when he first woke up and left the bedroom and he was in the kitchen with Markus, a mug held against his chest and looking towards Markus. They look happy. Exceptionally so. Gavin finds himself trying to see more of their small moments like that. When they think Gavin isn’t there or isn’t looking. When they hold hands or Markus leans close to him and whispers something that him and Connor can’t hear.

Maybe this would be easier if him and Connor weren’t in such a strange place.

 

 

“Are you ready?” Connor asks, leaning against the door frame. Niles and Markus have already left hours ago, leaving the second set of car keys for them.

Gavin nods, stepping across the space and taking Connor’s hand. All he wants to do is hold Connor’s hand. Like if he lets it go for too long Connor will drift away from him. Like he needs a reminder that the two of them are together.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

 

 

They arrive at the theatre barely on time and are shown to their seats quickly. Connor holds a program in his hands, nervously opening and closing it, looking through the list of cast and orchestra members before turning his attention back to the stage.

Gavin wants to reach out and stop his hands from shaking. Still the little bit of nerves bundled up in his stomach.

“Are you alright?” he asks, even though he knows Connor isn’t. But asking _why_ Connor is upset right now seems like an awful alternative.

“I’ve never—” he pauses and bites his lip, laughing a little. “I’ve never heard Markus or Niles play before. In an actual performance like this, I mean. This is… different than high school recitals.”

Gavin nods, as if he understands, but he doesn’t. His fingers were broken when he refused to continue his piano lessons. He never associated the keys or the sound of it with that moment, because it was so heavily focused on so many other things. It would have happened eventually. He has plenty of broken bones in his body to know that.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the lights above them flicker and the crowd falls silent. Gavin leans back in his seat and _the Nutcracker_ begins.

 

 

It happens when a blizzard of girls dressed like snowflakes are doing pirouettes and arabesques across the stage. Clara and her partner are in the middle of them, him holding her up like she weighs nothing and she looks on with a smile, dazzled by the snowflakes dance.

Gavin reaches over and holds his hand, tight. A grip that is different from before, but just as reassuring. There is something about the moment that makes Connor look away from the stage and towards Gavin. _The Nutcracker_ plays on, the flutes and piano and other instruments continuing their songs, the ballet dancers bourée and the curtain comes down, hiding them from view. But Connor is hit with that question again:

_Should they be together?_

He is starting to annoy himself with his inability to stick with an answer. If he asked himself this two months ago he would have told himself _yes, absolutely._ Because they are good together. Because they love each other. Because Gavin knows when to hold his hand and help ease some of whatever lingering stress is in his heart. He will never be able to cure it—that would be impossible—but he _helps._

And Connor doesn’t love him because he gets rid of some of his nerves or he staves off some of the bad dreams or that he didn’t look at Connor like he was a disgusting mutilated human being when he saw those scars. He loves him because Gavin is a good person. Despite the past fighting, despite the violence, he has overcome it. He has become a person who is kind and sweet and _soft_. He is not the person with the underlying anger and the tendency towards hatred that he thought he was in the beginning.

But—

_Should they be together?_

 

 

“You played incredibly,” Connor says, pulling Niles into a tight hug. “I wish I could come to more of your performances.”

“I know.” Niles replies quietly. He hugs him back, too, tighter than he ever has, as if he’s making up for all their time lost. The performances Connor has missed, the hugs that they haven’t had, the years they have gone without seeing and telling each other absolutely everything.

“Next year,” he says, staying here and lingering in Nile’s arms, not quite done hugging his brother yet. “I’ll come back.”

“And Gavin? Will he come too?”

Connor looks over Niles shoulder to where Markus and Gavin stand a few yards away, both with their eyes on their phones or the cement sidewalk. Their conversation is drowned out by the chatter of the crowd leaving the theatre, and for that Connor is grateful. Gavin won’t hear or see the hesitation in him responding to this question.

But Niles does.

“Connor?”

He pulls back and smiles, nodding, “Of course.”

“Connor—”

“It’s not important. Let’s not think about anything, alright? Tomorrow is Christmas.”

“Hey,” Niles says, reaching out and stopping him from walking away. “Tell me.”

A demand, not a question. Not even a terribly veiled suggestion.

_Tell me._

But he can’t. It’s too big of a topic to bring up out here, and there is too much chance for Gavin to overhear it. Even if they were at the apartment and Gavin was asleep, there is still too much of a chance. _Of a risk._

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. Never. He wouldn’t.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Connor breathes in a sigh but it comes back out shaking with a single word, “Me.”

“I don’t understand.”

_No. Of course he doesn’t._

“Do you love him?”

“Of course.”

“But you…”

“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t… discuss this in public.”

_We shouldn’t discuss this at all._

“Right,” Niles says with a nod, glancing back to the other two. “You two seem like a good pair. Markus thinks so, too. But you should talk to Gavin about this. He’s your boyfriend. He’s the other half of this situation. I think he should be included in the discussion.”

“Instead of you?”

Niles gives him a small smile and a nod, “Yes, instead of me. Although, I would appreciate it if we stopped keeping secrets.”

He offers his brother a smile and forces the subject to change. They should head back to the apartment. Get some rest. _Tomorrow is Christmas._ They shouldn’t spend Christmas Eve thinking about their pasts.

 

 

_December 25 th_

They pass out their presents in the morning. They’re too old to act like children on Christmas morning and leap up and down with the joy of the holiday but they’re not too old to allow themselves to sleep in and waste the day away.

Connor is given an apron with a dog face printed on it, a cookbook filled with meals that are something other than pastries and baked goods, and a hoodie like Gavin’s. Pale blue, the ears dog instead of cats. He likes the hoodie the most. They can match now.

Gavin opens boxes with a new leather jacket with faded red details, a poetry book that utilizes expletives in the prettiest (and most amusing) ways it can manage, and a coffee mug designed to resemble a cat. Black instead of soft pale pink like the one Chloe has.

 

 

Markus makes rolls for dinner and Connor nudges Gavin towards the kitchen, telling him to help. He stays with them, helping break the barrier between the two. Markus tells a joke and Connor laughs and he’s surprised to find when he glances over to Gavin that he’s stifling one, too. The ice is thawing. It’s a shame they will have to leave soon. He’d like this to last.

_Next year._

Next year they will come back and the friendship will have already started.

 

 

_December 26 th_

They say their farewells and check in their luggage before boarding the plane. Both of them are tired and exhausted and Connor falls asleep against Gavin’s shoulder despite never being able to do so before. Gavin is the one to stay awake, to push up the plastic cover in front of the window and look through to the clouds and darkness outside.

He didn’t expect to want to stay so much. He thought the entire trip was going to end with him being relieved about going home and feeling guilty that Connor would want to stay behind with his brother and Markus. But he grew to like the two of them. Enough that he wouldn’t have minded an extra day or week there. Maybe not enough to call them _friends_ , but enough that he didn’t feel weird giving the two of them a wave and a half smile as they left, and they made Connor laugh and smile in a way that he hasn’t in a while. Real and unadulterated fun.

At least he gets to go home and see Mocha. He’ll be able to sit in a quiet apartment alone with Connor and kiss him without worrying about being watched and judged by Niles, which he’s sure he was. If they had stayed one more night Gavin is positive he would have had a chat with Niles about how he shouldn’t hurt Connor.

He wonders if Elijah or his sister would have that conversation with Connor if they were in his life.

Maybe not, because Gavin is clearly the one that is going to fuck this up in the end. He always is.

 

 

They return to the apartment and set their bags down. Gavin walks over to Mocha and picks her up from the floor, smothering her in kisses against the top of her head before letting Connor take her from his hands. He has his eyes closed, resting her against his shoulder like a baby. There is a small smile of contentment on his lips before he sets her back down again.

“Bed?” he asks in that quiet voice of his.

“Bed.” Gavin agrees, taking his hand and letting Connor pull him towards the room.

They collapse against the mattress and don’t even bother changing their clothes. They have only enough energy to kick their shoes off and curl up on their proper sides and let out a small laugh when Mocha nuzzles her way between the two of them.

 

_December 28 th_

Connor gets home before Gavin on most days, but today is different. The wait between three and five in the afternoon has never felt like such an excruciating long time and he discovers he is useless to try and pass it. He attempts to read a book but can’t focus on the words. He finds an audiobook on his phone and plays it but realizes he isn’t focusing on what is being spoken to him. He turns the television on and watches the people move but none of their actions sink into his head.

When the door finally opens he jumps upwards, Mocha looking over at him suspiciously from her side of the couch as Gavin steps into the apartment.

“Hey—”

“I need to talk to you.”

Gavin pauses, setting his bag down slowly, shedding his coat with cautious movements. He is trying to stretch out this moment. Keep their relationship as it is for the few seconds between now and whatever Connor is going to tell him.

“Okay,” he says, hanging his coat up. “Let’s talk.”

The words are stuck. He sorts through them while Gavin kicks off his shoes, takes Mocha from the couch and steals her spot so he can sit beside Connor. Still, there is distance between them. One seat. Not unusual. They aren’t constantly in contact, but right now it feels wrong.

“I don’t want to break up with you,” Connor says, testing the words out. He finds he can’t look at Gavin’s face right now. If he does, he won’t be able to say everything he needs to. “I love you. More than anything. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Connor…”

Gavin trails off and he doesn’t reply straight away. They just sit in silence while Connor tries to make sense of the mess in his head. It all makes sense until he needs to say the words out loud and then they seem to jumble themselves up and twist their way around one another.

“I love you,” he repeats. “And I’m just terrified that—”

That Eddie was right. No one is ever going to love Connor properly. Especially after Eddie destroyed him.

_Should they be together?_

His heart and his head say yes but there is a third shadow that exists within him, the scars on his body constantly screaming _no._

“What?” the question is whispered, quiet between them. The sun is setting outside the window, the winter sending them into a dark spiral in this living room.

“I’m scared that this isn’t going to last.”

Isn’t his trauma resurfacing a sign of that? Isn’t the nightmare and the crying and the struggling every day a sign of that? That they are falling apart and love can’t fix anything and _Eddie was right._

“Connor,” Gavin says, moving closer to him, reaching for his hands only for one of them to leave it to rest against his cheek. “So am I, but I told you before, remember? I’m going to marry you someday.”

He laughs a little and it catches him off guard. It catches Gavin off guard, too.

“You think we’ll be together forever?”

“I want to be. I hope so,” he replies, with a slight shrug. “I… The future is a scary place. We don’t have to be thinking of what’s going to happen with the two of us, alright? We can take this one step at a time. One day or week or month at a time. Looking for what we’ll be like in forty years is…”

“Ridiculous?”

“Yeah,” he says. “We aren’t going to be the same people now as we are then. There isn’t a use in trying to pretend we’ll know what we’ll be up to. But that’s… that’s not all, is it?”

“No.”

Gavin nods, like he understands. Maybe he does. He has his own problems. He just hasn’t opened up about them as much because it never put their relationship in such a delicate position. At least, not quite like this.

“I want you to feel comfortable telling me anything,” he says quietly. “But I don’t want to force you to do anything.”

“I know.”

“Do you… also know I can’t help if I don’t know?”

It is his turn to nod and he looks away once more. Gavin’s hand at his cheek falls down and holds onto Connor’s hand carefully.

“Eddie always told me I wasn’t good enough,” he says. He is forcing the words out and they are painful because he doesn’t want to say them, because they still strike true. But Gavin is right. He needs to know. He needs to know everything. “When I argued with him once, he told me he was the only one that could ever love me.”

“That’s not true.”

“I know. But I still—” he sighs. “I feel like… I don’t know. I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want space?”

 _No_ , because _space_ means being away from Gavin and he isn’t obsessively clingy, but _space_ isn’t just a codeword for them not seeing each other everyday. It’s a codeword for _break up._ He doesn’t want to break up.

“I think I need therapy.”

“Okay. I’ll help you find a therapist, if that’s what you’d like.”

“Just like that?”

He doesn’t know why he expected Gavin to say something else. To insist that Connor wouldn’t need one or something. To fight it somehow. He doesn’t know why he assumed the worst in him, if that could be considered the worst.

“Just like that.”

Connor smiles and nods and he knows he’s crying now but he leans forward and hugs Gavin and tightens his arms as much as he can because he feels like he might truly fall apart right now. He has been to a therapist before and it helped and he stopped because _Sumo’s_ got busier and there wasn’t enough time. Before he just assumed everything was fine and okay. He didn’t have a boyfriend, he didn’t have many friends. He was perfectly content with his life, even with the occasional nightmares and crying jags.

And then Gavin showed up.

And he made it all wonderful and happy and pretty, but the happiest times are always followed by the worst.

He wasn’t prepared for this.

 

 

_December 29 th_

“Gavin?”

“Hmm?”

“It says ‘alive.’”

“What does?”

“My tattoo. The binary code translates to ‘alive.’ I thought you should know.”

 

 

_December 31 st_

“Happy almost New Year.” Gavin says, leaning down to press a kiss against Connor’s lips.

“Happy almost New Year.”

He doesn’t know that Connor has changed the clocks in the kitchen and the living room to be thirty minutes fast. They need their rest and Connor knows Gavin would like to make the both of them stay up for the midnight kiss. He’s okay with that. He looks forward to it. Their fake New Year will be in two minutes. A tiny lie, but they are better off this way. It gives them an extra thirty minutes of sleep for tomorrow morning when they will both wake up before the sun is even deciding to rise again.

The two of them have spent the last couple of days looking into different therapists in their area. Gavin, somewhere along the way, had left the idea up in the air about maybe looking for two on opposite sides of the city. He had his hand up to his face, half hiding his scar. _Two._ Because Gavin is in need of this help just as much as Connor is.

There are some things that Connor doesn’t know about Gavin and there are things Gavin doesn’t know about Connor. They still have so many secrets from each other, but it doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way.

Someday, Gavin will tell Connor why he left the DPD. Someday, Connor will tell Gavin all the devastating details of his parent’s death. Maybe he will learn more about Gavin’s brother and maybe Niles will be there to tell the embarrassing stories of Connor’s past that he’d never let Gavin know on his own.

 _They have time_.

And when they whisper _I love you_ back and forth as the clock strikes fake midnight, he knows it matters. He knows Gavin means it. He knows it isn’t disfigured with the addition of a body part. Connor isn’t being reduced to what he’s good for in bed, what his appearance is, how well his body bleeds and bruises and scars for a man to wonder at the damage he’s caused.

Gavin just loves him.

He’s never felt that before, not besides with Niles. And this is a different kind of love. It is still pure and happy but it isn’t bonded by sibling and blood.

He hopes that Gavin feels the same. That he knows how much Connor truly loves him. All of his little quirks. The coffee and the cats and the horror movies. His arrogance and his stubbornness and his sarcasm. His affection and his kindness and his silly texts.

_Should they be together?_

Yes.

Absolutely.

Most certainly.

 

 

When they head inside, Connor takes the quarter from his pocket before changing into his clothes for bed. He turns it over in his hands, feeling the ridges like he always does, passing his thumb over the imprint of the face. He sets it down carefully on the dresser next to his phone and his wallet. Tomorrow it will be back in his pocket where it belongs.

Gavin never did properly tip him like he promised. It has always officially been this quarter.

But he has given Connor a thousand kisses and held his hand hundreds of times and has made him smile every day, even when he was struggling to find a reason for it. That, he thinks, is worth more than whatever tip he could give him.

 

_three years ago_

December 20th

It was easier this time than before. Either because he’s a stranger or because she’s done it once before, she isn’t really sure. But it isn’t difficult to lure a man to her apartment. And it isn’t difficult to tie him up, to gag him, to blindfold him.

Men are stupid. They get distracted by breasts and perfume and eye lashes. They think ropes and ball-gags are sexy instead of something they should be afraid of. Add a little giggle and a smile and a false twinkle in her eye and they will do anything she asks of them.

_Men are stupid._

She slips the knife from where it’s hidden, and she drives it into his chest again and again and again and _again_. She hasn’t quite got the anger out from the last one and she has more now.

This man—this despicable monster—hurt Connor. He destroyed him. He ruined everything.

_He deserves to die._

She showers afterwards. Flushes all the evidence down the drain. The blood swirls around her feet and she watches it disappear. Waits until it runs clear for twenty minutes before she trusts the evidence is as gone as it will get. Her clothes are burning the fireplace when she makes the call. Hank will be here in thirty minutes. He’ll help clean up the rest.

And until then she will repeat what he told her last year like a mantra:

_He deserved it. He deserved something more painful, too. But he deserved it._

_And Connor cannot find out._

Connor. Cannot. Find. Out.

It will be terrible and terrifying for him to live the rest of his life thinking Eddie will pop back up again but he _cannot_ know. It is better this way. _He_ is better off this way.

Does it matter if she is now a murderer? If she is one step away from being a serial killer? Chloe is helping, isn’t she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and... that's the end....
> 
> writing/editing music;  
> That's Us - Anson Seabra  
> All I Want - Dawn Golden  
> Discoloration - Dawn Golden

**Author's Note:**

> as always!! [feel free to message me on my tumblr!! I'd love to talk to you about anything!!](http://alekszova.tumblr.com/)


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